Koumaria 2025 Open Call
By artist collective Medea Electronique
http://www.medeaelectronique.com/
RESIDENCY DATES: May 18-May 28
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION : APRIL 10th
RESULTS BY : April 15th
Medea Electronique (an Athens-based arts collective) is seeking artists to contribute to the collective’s new interactive multimedia installation/performance based on the 2014 story “What I Learned from the Snake” by Ivan Vyrypayev. This installation-performance will merge physical objects, sound, video, movement, and digital elements into an immersive playground. You will be working collaboratively with the members of Medea Electronique. Your contribution will be fully credited in the installation/performance program notes, and all associated documentation and promotional materials.
In keeping with the conceptual development of this project, the theme of the residency is toys, and so we are primarily looking for artists who work with, or wish to work with, toys in all their manifestations—as objects, concepts, and mechanisms that can transcend their traditional function and become sites of artistic and technological experimentation.
Toys are more than mere playthings. They are sites of radical invention, engines of imagination, and experimental tools that bridge past and future. From ancient Greek automata to Tetris, Nintendo1990, VR gaming consoles, and contemporary interactive installations, toys have always blurred the lines between illusion and reality, function and fiction, entertainment and critique. We are interested in what toys can do, not just what they are, toys as sites where we communicate, compete and learn.
For Koumaria 2025, we seek creators who engage with game-machines, both old and new—hacking, repurposing, deconstructing, and reimagining their form and function. We are interested in:
- Reconfigured Play – Modifying existing toys and game machines, altering their mechanics, aesthetics, and social roles. (bring your own old and/or new toys!)
- Invention & Craft – Designing new forms of playable devices that question or expand the notion of the toy.
- Unexpected Assemblages – Employing old materials and obsolete technologies in new and surprising ways.
- Play as Ritual & Performance – Exploring play as a liminal space where technology and human experience intersect.
- Subversive Games – Prototyping alternative play experiences that disrupt dominant narratives and hierarchies.
Residency
Since 2009 the artist collective Medea Electronique has organized an annual 10-day experimental artist residency, Koumaria, near Sparta in Greece (the village of Sellasia), focusing on improvisation and new media practices. New-media artists from all over the world, inspired by the Greek natural landscape, come together to create a multicultural and cross-media ‘dialogue’ culminating in a collective presentation in Sellasia, and high-quality documentation of the works produced during the residency. Past residents have formed lasting friendships and new artistic partnerships. For us the residency serves as a model for future creative collaborations.
The residency is held at an organic olive oil farm at the foot of Mount Taigetos in Sparta. The base for the residency, a modern and comfortable house, features dormitory-style bedrooms, large and comfortable common rooms (featuring fireplaces and magnificent views of the surrounding mountains and fields), two primary spaces for project development and practice, terraces, rooftop overlooks, and a large and modern kitchen. The surrounding hills, mountains, villages and the not-too-distant sea, coupled with a vast expanse of sky, stars, and ever-changing mountain vistas, afford the residents amble space and opportunity for creative work. Meals are taken communally, with an emphasis on fresh and local produce and traditional recipes. In this environment artists not only have the chance to live and work together interacting with the Greek landscape, but also to trade their experiences concerning everyday life and culture. Chores are undertaken collectively, but there is ample time for residents to work, create, explore the surroundings and enter into new artistic partnerships.
***
Your application should include a statement of your interest in this year’s theme, and a sketch of a way you might want to explore it collaboratively with other artists across disciplines and media. In particular you should make clear your interest and experience in working with toys as creative tools.
It is worth emphasizing that Koumaria’s focus is COLLECTIVE art creation. You should expect, and desire, substantive input from other residents, and be open to having projects morph considerably during the course of the residency. We will all be working together with the goal in mind of creating the proposed installation/performance as a collective work.
Medea Electronique, being an eclectic art collective, is interested in people from diverse cultural and artistic backgrounds. Past residents have come from a variety of artistic backgrounds, and from numerous countries. While assorted nationalities and ethnicities have been represented, the common language of the residency is English (although fluency is not necessary, an ability to interact with other artists in English is necessary).
Members of Medea Electronique will be on hand to both guide the overall direction of the residency, and to fully participate in the residency as artists.
(Note: This is a remote region of Greece, with limited ability to obtain tech/electronic materials while we are there. Residents will need to check in advance concerning what materials will be available, and what they will need to bring. It is far easier to get in the area a bail of wire, or a piece of pipe then a semi-conductor or an obscure battery!)
The residency provides:
In terms of hospitality
- Housing and food supplies during the course of the residency
- Transportation to all the sites around the residency
- Clean bedsheets and blankets
- A 500 euro fee for your artistic contributions
While there are few expenses the residents need to consider while at the residency, it is worth having some funds for trips to local cafes and the like. Calculate approximately 5-10 euros a day for such incidentals.
Notes:
- Rooms, Bathrooms at the residency are shared
- Cooking and cleaning the house during our stay is undertaken collectively. We will create a cleaning rota so everyone knows what day they are expected to do what (say help that day with evening dishes, or sweep)
HOW TO APPLY
Paperwork to submit
- A personal statement saying why you want to participate. This statement should speak to this year’s theme. (see above)
- A small sample of your individual work (web-site, videos, pictures etc.)
- Your C.V.
SEND ALL MATERIAL AND INFO AT
Note: Email Subject should have your name_Application Koumaria Residency 2025
I would make it more generic “for your artistic contributions” We can explain more in person to anyone we choose to join us