Open Call // Ambactia Memoria

Ambactia Memoria is a group exhibition to be presented at SomoS Art House Berlin between March 2-13 2021, coinciding with the Berlin Travel Festival as an alternative critical venue. Applications are welcome that deconstruct the idea of Hispanicness and/or collectively imagine its transformation. Ambactia Memoria offers artists, critics and activists an open framework to articulate non-normative artistic positions and peripheral perspectives regarding tradition, memory and identities positioned in relation to the Hispanic.
Curated by Vanesa Peña Alarcón (ES), the exhibition takes as a starting point an institutional critique of the global stereotypical representation of the Hispanic by international diplomatic organizations and cultural institutes. In Peña’s view, this representation of the Hispanic or the concept of Hispanicness, is a form of patronization of people’s history, collective memory and subjectivities, a one-sided perspective that doesn’t allow for a real inclusion of transculturalism.

Contributions may reflect on:
- The international (re)presentation of so-called “Spanish-speaking cultures” and the politics of the Hispanic gaze. Can the Hispanx speak? 
- The rise of national cultural identities vs “Otherness” (racial, gender, sexual, able-bodied, class oligarchies…).
- How can traditions be made anew, moving away from national identity? 
- The interconnection between decolonial perspectives, patriarchy and gender (eg. Cuir Theory as a critical displacement from Queer Theory, trans*feminist imaginary, ecofeminisms, cyberfeminisms, indigenous feminism...).
- The role of (post)memory in visual culture. How can memory be used to deal with (intergenerational) trauma? How can forms of oppression become challenged through the expression of (inter)personal experience? 

Submission guidelines:
- Deadline: November 30th, 2020, 23:59 CET.
- Applications (in English or Spanish) can be submitted through the website form at https://somos.media/ny. If you have any questions, please write to [email protected].
- We encourage artists from any country and working in all types of media to apply. Both already produced works or original proposals specifically for Ambactia Memoria are eligible for consideration. 
- Applicants may present work both physically in the exhibition space and/or online. We are especially eager to include performative projects, ephemeral installations, durational art pieces, artforms built in situ before or during the exhibition, and other artforms that deal with the question of the Hispanic. We also encourage theoretical and philosophical proposals that incorporate discourse into them (fanzines, essays, lectures…).
- Practical note: we will be continually re-evaluating the situation in terms of COVID-19 regulations to examine what kind of public presentations are possible, namely how many visitors will be allowed in the exhibition space during live events.

Support:
SomoS is an artist-run initiative, therefore financial support is limited. While we are working on the funding, the exhibition is not currently subsidized by third parties. In the Berlin area, SomoS can assist with, or arrange transportation and may assist in installing and helping in the creation of new work in the exhibition space according to the artist’s concept.