Mailart & ArtByMail // open_calls & exhibitions repository
last updated on 2024-08-27 11:19:58 / 12 days ago30 open_calls
☑ use the ballot box to check out stuff
The World of Tomorrow ■
What world (imaginary or real) for tomorrow.
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Nº13 ■
I once stepped into the elevator of a thirty-floor building, which had no 13th floor button. Seeing the order jump from 12 to 14, I thought, “This is weird!” Had some designer or engineer made an outrageous mistake? Noticing more cases—on airplanes, for instance—I discovered the practice is widespread. But for one who’s had a good relationship with 13 right from birth, this makes no sense.
N°13 is not just synonymous with bad luck. It symbolizes many things. Some even enjoy playing with the number’s reputation by taking a tongue-in-cheek approach. Take Finland’s National Accident Day, for instance, which promotes safety on the roads, at work and in the home. Its annual day of celebration is always Friday the 13th.
What’s your take on N°13?
The paradox embodied in this tale is that the ‘dangerous’ number hadn’t disappeared. Its digits had merely been reversed to identify the highest story. Imagine, this thirty-floor building had a 31st floor.
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Cultural exchange between BRAZIL and ITALY ■
What do you think cultural exchange is? How can you visually represent the influences between Italy and Brazil? What exchanges are evident in each culture? What dialogues have been created between the two countries? How do you perceive the influences of Italian immigration in Brazil and the massification of Brazilian culture around the world? The manifestations of art, children's games and play, words, expressions and memories are cultural tools that influence us as individuals. How can this knowledge affect your personal, professional or love life, or your curiosity to travel?
The curator of this call is Italian-Brazilian, with studies and practices that represent a fragmented society. With past experience in the artistic languages of mosaic and photography, Cris is interested in the role of art as an impact on communities and as a tool for cultural exchange. Her practices include public programs for communities and artistic mediation. Cris proposes this call with the aim of exemplifying the general perceptions of people in her independent Intercultural Education research.
These works can be used to contribute to studies and exhibitions about relations between the two countries, as well as to illustrate theses and articles.
please send a photo of your work before posting it by e-mail
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eARTh of Olive ■
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CoNVoCaZioNe iNTeRNaZioNaLe Di aRTe PoSTaLe eSSeRCi SeNZa eSSeRCi 2024 (XVII edizione) ■
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Toninhos Room
One of the Toninhos: a slave who heard the ox speak. The other Toninho: an architect who entered politics.
Both, a synthesis of the room that celebrates the freedom of art that moves, screams, acts, that does not disintegrate into gray, but with blood opens a path that reverberates. The room of Toninhos, is a space to receive mail art, paying tribute to all the Toninhos of yesterday and today who follow their dreams.
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Please Mail To Home
Please Mail To Home is a digital exhibition portraying the theme of “Recovering A Sense Of Place.” This theme can describe a reconnection with a physical location, a space within oneself, a passion or a community.
After completing my Master’s degree in Curation (and wrote about Mail Art for my thesis) I moved to the UK to join the corporate world and now, after two years, I am returning home to Ireland. I was inspired by the sense of rediscovery I have felt during this process. While it is as much about reconnecting with the familiar feeling of home, it is also about reconciling with oneself, as during those two years I connected little with Mail Art or the arts in general. And so here too I am “recovering a sense of place” within my passion and within the community.
I would like to invite other artists to submit work exploring this theme and encourage them to rediscover a connection to something through the making process that perhaps they had lost or felt distant from. In this way, the process of creating the work helps tell the story of the final creation, as the culmination point of this journey.
All featured artists will receive proof of participation as well as a printed postcard by Irish illustrator @ratlaz designed to the theme of the exhibition. These will be numbered, signed and include a thank-you message.
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Birds and Nature ■
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Birds and Nature - COA-POA
COA-PoA was the first Birdwatchers' Club in Brazil and will be 50 years old in 2024! To celebrate, we're launching this Art Mail call with the theme "Birds and nature".
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Permutation ■
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Crecivist Obscure Music for Mail Artists ■
Adam Roussopoulos'(great) Ultimate Mail Art Playlist is all about our favorite band/artist and songs. Let's go further. As practitioners of 'outside art', we all have interesting, experimental, obscure music in our collections. Pick an album that meets the criteria above that people should really hear. Send us the Artist/Band, Album and link to Where can we find it. We'll create a mail art project piece and send it to all participants.
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FLUX ■
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Mute Sound ETERNAL NETWORK
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Rediscovering kindness ■
Kindness is contagious (Mestre Gentileza), the joy of humanity (Marco Aurelio) and there are multiple benefits to psychosocial well-being. Everyone is invited to celebrate kindness and acceptance of difference, remembering beautiful human attitudes such as empathy and tolerance. Join us in World Kindness Day celebration, after all: What is kindness to you?
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Electioneering
The visual language developed over years of insipid political advertising now permeates the majority of our technology leading up to every election in the United States. Those idiosyncrasies that emerge within each cycle are quickly usurped by a prevailing, overarching, and perhaps even comforting-if-only-by-way-of-familiarity, tone of cynical electoral politics. The subsequent sigh from the voting body arrives for us in couplets, once as the ads are terminated from our devices and a second time as the election results are counted.
This thematic exhibition requests mailed responses on the visual language of electoral politics that further complicate, problematize, and reflect on the ways in which our political system is now interwoven with the human experience. The curation of the exhibition mirrors the frenetic pace of the cross-platform media buy, expanding and intensifying its presence exponentially as election day approaches, culminating in a frenzied and cacophonous online exhibition in the days leading up to the US election. The website featuring all received works will be on view through inauguration day, 2025.
We are particularly interested in global responses to the election cycle in the United States, though we intend to show all works received.
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SHAME | FETISH ■
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A Tribute to Doriano Rota Mail Artist ■
A tribute to a dear friend and comrade, who after a lifelong militancy has left us, present in a thousand struggles, social, cultural and political initiatives, because he believed that society could be changed in a libertarian sense with personal commitment and mutual aid.
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African Portraits ■
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Free Space to Imagiantion
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Free Palestine
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“LET'S PLAY” VI International Mailart Open Call ■
Quinta da Cruz - Centro de Arte Contemporânea de Viseu (Portugal) was created as a dynamic hub for art, culture and identity. It is a cultural space geared towards exhibiting contemporary art and developing artistic practices, and is seen as an engine for local artistic promotion. Intended for public enjoyment, culture and leisure, it is set in a large green area of remarkable biodiversity.
The mail art project promotes the democratic participation of artistic practices, starting with the reactivation of an expression that had its heyday, alternatively to the conventional means of art exhibitions, in the 60s/70s. Every year, an international call for entries is issued and an exhibition is held of the works received.
It also legitimizes that artistic production is a preponderant expression for the creation of spaces for dialogue, places of "breaking", reinvention and daring. This call assumes the transformative, inclusive and participatory role of art. The route of these works is interpreted and intervened upon throughout this postal journey. More than just an annual call, this project calls for a model of collaborative work with the aim of building and giving visibility to collections of this nature.
In 2024, VISEU values healthier and more active habits and routines, promoting a happier and more balanced lifestyle. With this mission in mind, the city is committed to encouraging the community to adopt practices that improve physical and mental well-being. The VI CALL, with the theme VAMOS A JOGO (LET’S PLAY), invites everyone to take part in this artistic initiative that aims to inspire and motivate the population to integrate sporting and recreational activities into their daily lives.
We invite artists and anyone interested in mail art [mailart] to send in their works to take part in the 6th edition of this call. Only works received via traditional mail will be exhibited. We look forward to receiving drawings, collages, stamps, visual poetry and other creative formats at Quinta da Cruz - Centro de Arte Contemporânea de Viseu.
Although specific standards are set for artwork, artists are encouraged to explore beyond these guidelines and challenge the curator, thus encouraging creativity and free artistic expression.
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2024 International Mail Art Show ■
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Mailart: Book of Dead
I'm an admirer of the book of the dead, so I think a book of the same style is needed for MAILART.
The idea came from recycling a lot of paper that was around the house and this project came about.
Creating mail art inspired by the “Book of the DeaD” can be a fascinating and creative endeavor.
The “Book of the DeaD” is an ancient Egyptian funerary text that contains spells and instructions for the deceased's journey through the afterlife.
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Sharing Beauty
Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
(Anne Herbert)
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Fairytales ■
“The short story offers a model for life, a life-giving and encouraging model that remains in the unconscious containing all the positive possibilities of life.”
- Marie-Louise von Franz
Fairy tales were and are part of the childhood of many of us and are still found today in oral traditions as well as in literary works. I'm an art therapist and I'm passionate about these narratives! For years, I've been using fairy tales as an important and powerful tool in my work as an art therapist.
Creating Art Mail with the theme of Fairy Tales will be a return to the memories of the past and an opportunity to reread a familiar story with a new narrative, after all, stories vary according to the historical and geographical context.
I invite anyone and everyone interested to take part in this call, collaborating in putting together a collection of Fairy Tale-themed mail art for use in studies and research.
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kreiseln
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kreiseln ■
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Coffee
Everything about coffee and its culture.
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What a theater! ■
Why this Mail Art-call?
Quite simply because we love and appreciate theater. We encounter theater every day e.g., in everyday situations or in idioms that refer to it like “All the world’s a stage”, “to get the show on the road”, “to wait in the wings”, “to steal the show”, “What a drama!” etc. So we encounter “theater” in our everyday lives, and often it makes us smile.
The city of Schweinfurt is one of the lucky operators of a theater building. It is a guest theater and thus offers many different ensembles the opportunity to present themselves to a theater-loving audience through a wide variety of plays.
There are no limits to the joy of experimentation, which can also be borderline for individual spectators.
Schweinfurt has a long theater tradition, first documented in 1572 with the performance of “Comedy of the Last Judgment”.
The venues have changed frequently over the years.
In 1966, a new theater building opened on Roßbrunnstrasse. It was designed by the architect of Prof. Erich Schellig, with a polygonal ground plan and cubistic superstructures. A large staircase connects the theater building with the Châteaudun Park.
All in all, the building looks different in all sides.
Inside we find a piece of art of Gustl G. Kirchner with a turquoise wall in spatula technique; in the staircase Günther Zirkelbach created a relief with cut plasterboards; Prof. Karl Dahmen dedicated himself to the large 130 square meter wall with a dispersion spatula technique. He was an important representative of Tachism. His work is considered a major work of German Informel. The stage designer Trude Karrer designed the hanging light sculpture in the auditorium.
The indirect lighting in this room is also impressive. Its wal, cover with pyramid bodies shining out of themselves, some of which are gilded, creates a wonderful atmosphere. And so it could go on for a long time to describe our beautiful theater.
Since 1973 there have been puppet play day, in regularly recurring intervals. Uwe Brockmüller regularly exhibited parts of his puppet collection in glass showcases.
Thus, one could get an impression of the variety of different puppet theaters — especially in the Asian region.
Our theater will be completely renovated. For this reason, we started this Mail Art-call. We are curious how and what is perceived as theater and what individuals associate with it.
The submitted postcards will be exhibited as part of a mail art installation.
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[e]mailart
do consider what [e]mailart is and could be. consider what's the difference between merely sending a simple attachment or image as an email body or otherwise sending a real piece of art that uses all the capacity of what embodies the digital world and the ancient email technology and protocols.
can a mere attachment be considered a work of art? or should we explore something that resides in the body of the email and is changeable and unique and unable to subsist in any other medium than that?
alternatively, you may also submit some words, your point of view on the matter, or even an essay regarding the "digital world vs mailart vs [e]mailart vs art".
any questions regarding the open call should not be sent to us by email as they won't be replied to.
thanks for your contribution. all valid [e]mailart will be gathered and presented primarily on its digital form and support and eventually within a catalog.
for more open calls, please head to www.mailart.pt and check all documentation available.