Impex - Contemporary Art Provider announces a call for participation in the Inbetween Zone workshop.

Challenged by the ongoing rapid and substantial transformation of urban environment, IMPEX aims to act as a platform for the critical analysis of urban development, social discourse and collaboration in art and cultural practices. Therefore, with its own location as a starting point, and at the same time encompassing a wider general discourse on the role of cultural potentials in urban development, IMPEX initiates a long-term interdisciplinary research project. This long-term project will include workshops, exhibitions, public interventions, publications and other alternative methods of collecting, generating and organizing ideas and knowledge.

The first stage of the project is the workshop entitled Inbetween Zone, which will take place from 16 to 23 June 2007, simultaneously with the 7th Biennial of European Towns and Town Planners. (www.makingplaces.hu)

The 'Corvin Promenade' project covers an area larger than 80,700 m2 in a zone of the VIII. district adjacent to the downtown (www.corvinsetany.hu), presently undergoing complete urban and architectural reconstruction. Meanwhile, development projects of a different scale, but similar impact as regards urban restructuring, are under way in two neighboring districts (VII, IX). This continuous zone, reaching over districts, will be the ground of the workshop.

Themes of the Workshop are:

1. Public art and urban planning
2. Techniques of collective and individual intervention: how inhabitants can use and form their own living-space
3. Grassroots: creative, grassroots initiations vs. urban planning
4. Limits to planning: limitations of urban planning projects
5. Mistake assessment: analysis and planning of errors in city development projects.
6. Urban policy and identity formation: urban legends - local heroes

Workshop structure: Throughout a one-week workshop 30 selected participants will work out the above listed topics in 5 different groups (approx. 6 people/group), with the guidance of tutors. Methods and approaches will be developed collectively within the group. The results of the workshop will be introduced in the form of an exhibition and a public presentation in Impex. The official language of the workshop is English.

What do we provide? Maximum 100 EUR traveling cost for the participants, accommodation and production costs of the workshop. Participation in the workshop is free of charge.

Whom do we expect? Hungarian and foreign applicants who are engaged in the fields of culture, commerce, media or social sciences (artists, architects, sociologists, urbanists, cultural managers, philosophers, filmmakers, anthropologists, designers, economists, managers, communication experts, etc.).

The application has to include: CV and attached documentation of relevant professional practices in English or Hungarian. We accept applications via email, not larger than 1 MB, to the following address: urbancreativity@gmail.com

Deadline for applications: 14 May 2007

The workshop is realized through the collaboration of IMPEX - Contemporary Art Provider and FKSE - Studio of Young Artists Association.

IMPEX - Contemporary Art Provider is a new art scene in the 8th district of Budapest. The venue, which consists of a gallery, a workshop room and an office, presents experimentally minded and progressive artwork. It also accommodates studio practices, lectures and creative, interdisciplinary initiatives. Its objective is to aid cooperation and permeability between different areas of art, and, through its open and receptive structure, create a living connection with various social groups and civilian initiatives.

Due to a mutually beneficial cooperation between a bar (club) and a non-profit cultural institution, IMPEX is presently found in the building of West Balkan (www.west-balkan.com). - one of the last, temporarily standing houses in a large territory going through complete architectural and urban metamorphosis.

Organizers of the workshop: Tamás Kaszás (artist), Katarina Sevic (artist), Rita Kálman (art historian, independent curator), Sophie Dodelin (artist)

Further information: contact@impex-info.org www.impex-info.org