Open Call for the 2026 Round. Unfolding the Place. Placing the Folds

Stage 1
Introduction from AIR InSILo
This year, we have decided to introduce two innovations in our approach to the open call.
Firstly, we have chosen to structure the call in two stages. The first stage will be open until February 23. At this stage, we do not require a substantial amount of work from applicants. We request that you carefully read the open call concept and the curatorial text, watch a video featuring our co-curator, who designed the call, and write a short motivation letter. In this letter, you should describe the relationship between your practice and the concept of the call, as well as your motivation and the relevance of taking part in the residency. Please also send us your portfolio.
Secondly, we are proposing a small experiment: the possibility of applying anonymously. Even though we, as a residency, declare ourselves a solidarity project, we nonetheless respect the right to anonymity as a tool against bias, and are keen to receive feedback on this option. We are interested in learning how many applicants would prefer this form of interaction. We would also kindly ask you to share your thoughts on what kind of anonymity you would like to see in open calls in general. This idea was inspired by the practice of blind auditions in music, which we are attempting to rethink and adapt for a residency open call.

Stage 2
Applications selected in Stage 1 will receive an invitation to participate in Stage 2. Selected artists will have three weeks to submit the required materials.

Unfolding the Place. Placing the Folds
Curated by Agata Ciastoń
For this edition, AIR InSILo invites artists to take part in a residency curated by Agata Ciastoń. The residency will focus on working with place as a field of relations, encompassing matter and memory, body and landscape, and local and cosmic time. The concept develops from the curator’s ongoing engagement with archives, territories, and landscapes, and proposes an approach that connects artistic practice with methods of critical observation and spatial analysis. Applicants are kindly asked to read the full curatorial text, Unfolding the Place. Placing the Folds.
The residency is conceived as a space for developing or refining ideas rather than producing final works. It builds on research conducted by Ciastoń in Hollabrunn, where she tested various strategies for working with localities and spatial relations. Artists are invited to continue and expand this inquiry, whether by engaging directly with the environment of Hollabrunn or by connecting it to other geographic or conceptual territories. The aim is to examine how different sites, histories, and material traces intersect and inform artistic practice.
The residency will take place in collaboration with Agata Ciastoń, who will accompany participants in the development of their projects through discussion and dialogue. The focus will be on the process itself, including mapping, recontextualising, and unfolding relationships between ground, archive, and imagination.
This call is addressed to artists whose practices engage with site-specific, process-based, or research-oriented approaches; who examine relationships between landscape, infrastructure, memory, and history; who explore archives, walking, or mapping as artistic strategies; who reflect on the entanglement of human and material histories; and who seek to develop new approaches to spatial, historical, or ecological narratives.