Radar Sofia is announcing an open call for artists for three fully-funded residencies in Sofia, Bulgaria in 2022 under its year-long programme Distance and Resistance.

Radar Sofia is a small artist-run organization that functions as a residency space, a production house and a platform for development of new dramaturgy. Every year Radar Sofia proposes a curatorial line with a main theme and a series of guest artists – invited or selected through an international open call – who give a lecture or workshop sharing their methods and practices, and/or create a performance involving local participants in the work process. One of the aims of these curatorial lines is to develop the local artistic field through critical discourse, free non-formal education and new experimental formats, as well as to create opportunities for Bulgarian artists to form partnerships and collaborate with international professionals.

Social distancing, border closures, postponement of plans and projects, cancellation of festivals and residencies as well as a general sense of growing isolationism made Radar Sofia choose the theme of Distance and Resistance. If the situation with the pandemic only intensifies and makes visible what we’ve already been living through for a long time – a migration from the physical to the digital world, increasing work insecurity, social and physical distancing – then how does our artistic practice respond to these processes, how does it resist them, how does it offer alternatives and how does it distance itself from the ready-made solutions? Radar Sofia is the first and only residency in the Bulgarian context, focused on dramaturgy understood in a very broad sense. Radar Sofia asks you and ourselves: what can dramaturgy contribute to the world of today, how can it bring people together and how can it help re-imagine our contexts?

Deadline: May 31 for a residency starting in September/October, response by June 15
The residencies last for a minimum of one month with a possibility for extension.

Radar Sofia will provide for each resident:
One-time stipend of 800 EUR
Up to 400 EUR for production/presentation (to be spent locally)
Up to 200 EUR for travel costs

Radar Sofia invites artists who are interested in the local situation in Sofia, want to show and share their previous work, interact with local communities, research and develop new ideas, as well as form long-lasting partnerships in Bulgaria.

Production is not a must but if you have an idea the team will support you in getting in touch with local institutions, finding the most suitable working and presentation space. Radar Sofia has a small studio but doesn’t have its own stage or bigger rehearsal room. However, it collaborates with a number of local institutions that can provide various options. A potential final presentation can take the form of a lecture, talk, performance, workshop, installation, exhibition, work-in-progress, etc. A return to Sofia at a later stage to finalize an idea with additional funding is also an option.

Radar Sofia accepts applicants from all performative fields, with a special focus on dramaturgical thinking (understood as wide as possible), spanning across disciplines. Radar Sofia welcomes performing arts makers, playwrights, dramaturges, directors, performers, choreographers, as well as visual artists and curators working with live art, performance art, relational aesthetics, interactivity, community engagement and other old and new performative practices.

Further information: radarsofia.org