Jointly sponsored by the German Socialisms and Environmental Studies  and GSA Interdisciplinary Networks

In the past decade, the natural environment has come to occupy a central place in scholarship in multiple registers and in multiple disciplines. This has been especially true in the fields of American history and studies, as well as German history and studies. In fact, there has been a growing transatlantic connection between German and American studies through the bridge of environmental studies, with the newly inaugurated Rachel Carson Center in Munich acting as a key site of this exchange.

Recent important works have contributed specifically to our knowledge of the natural environment in the German Democratic Republic. Such works have sought to problematize the all-too-easy critique of state socialism as having degraded and polluted the natural environment as possibly its worst sin, and explored socialist nature in more nuanced grains and broader contexts. Recent works in the field of urban history have moved towards urban ecology, or ecologies, many inspired by Neil Smith, such as the work of Jens Lachmund, Matthew Gandy, Dorothee Brantz, and Bettina Stoetzer, combining an investigation of the city as a ecological space with both a critique of capitalism as well as a history of socialist Germany. Scholars such as Katharina Gerstenberger, Axel Goodbody and Sabine Wilke have also turned to East German fiction dealing with nature as refuge or site of catastrophe—epitomized by the contrasting pair of Christa Wolf’s Störfall and Sommerstück—to investigate the range of representational frameworks (feminist, regional, global, individualist, productivist, etc) for portraying the relationship of East Germans to nature.

At the same time, however, a new field of Eco-Marxism / Eco-socialism, or “Red-Green,” thought has been emerging, represented by the work of André Gorz, Murray Bookchin, Paul Burkett, John Bellamy Foster, Nancy Fraser, Ariel Salleh, Jason Moore, and others. Whereas before, Marx and socialism seemed inherently as in opposition to the environment, new trends since the end of the Cold War have focused on rethinking a critique of capitalism partially through its insatiable desire for and exploitation of resources. Even Marx himself has undergone a remarkable re-evaluation in this vein!

It is far from clear how to interpret this recent remarkable confluence—nature, capitalism, critical theory, socialism, Germany, the transatlantic context. In a way, these threads combine to form their own “ecology.” The German Socialisms and Environmental Studies GSA Interdisciplinary Networks therefore seek paper proposals that enter that ecology from any number of points, including:

• histories of nature and the environment under German state socialism
• views of nature in the German socialist imaginary, both before and after 1949
• interactions between green and left-wing politics in Germany
• new theoretical avenues of “red-green” thought, eco-feminism, or reinterpretations of Marx
• “ecologies” as a concepts, including ecologies of humans, plants and socialisms
• third world solidarity and notions of foreign ecologies during the GDR

Please submit a 250-word abstract and 3-page CV to Eli Rubin (eli.rubin@wmich.edu) or Scott Moranda (scott.moranda@cortland.edu) by January 25. We expect to create a sequence of 3 panels.

The GERMAN SOCIALISMS NETWORK is a vehicle for connecting the diversity of current scholarship on the GDR with a broader academic base that explores the impact and meanings of Socialism in all of its manifestations, from its beginnings in the 19th century to the present. Encouraging both speculative and empirical methodologies, the Network seeks to bring together scholars operating in all fields and time periods for a productive exchange that questions the world in which we live and the political machinations that created it.

The Environmental Studies Network, founded in 2012, is an interdisciplinary effort within the German Studies Association to promote eco-critical approaches to environmental issues through literary, historical, sociological, visual, and cultural perspectives. Scholars within the Environmental Studies Network are keenly interested in examining how these areas of study, which include political and philosophical questions drawn from deep ecology, eco-feminism, environmental justice, “new materialism,” and the Anthropocene, might inform our understanding of German culture and society. The German Studies Environmental Studies Network also welcomes debate and dialogue with the natural sciences and policy studies. Indeed, it is also our goal to show that environmental problems are always already cultural and scientific, ethical and technological.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Twenty-Three Days at Sea: A Travelling Artist Residency
Year Two 2016-17
DEADLINE: Monday, February 15, 2016

Access Gallery, in partnership with Burrard Arts Foundation, invites submissions for the second year of its Travelling Artist Residency Program, Twenty-Three Days at Sea. Twenty-Three Days at Sea grants selected emergent visual artists passage aboard cargo ships sailing from Vancouver, Canada to Shanghai. Crossing the Pacific Ocean takes approximately twenty-three days, during which time the artist will be considered “in residence” aboard the vessel.

There are many hundreds of residency programs worldwide. Twenty-Three Days at Sea follows the “aberrant” turn in artist residencies, in that it imposes specific conditions and constraints (the strictures of the port; the solitude of the freighter cabin; the expanse of the open sea) that will, in turn shape artists’ ideas and work. It offers the opportunity to integrate critical and creative practices into a new set of parameters, and the potential of challenging established routines, activities and assumptions. At its base, Twenty-Three Days at Sea asks artists to question what constitutes creative space, and to consider how time is experienced over the highly charged, yet largely invisible, spatial trajectory of a trans-Pacific shipping route. It offers a profoundly generative time and space—in the unconventional studio space of the cargo ship cabin—for focused research and the creation of provocative new ideas and work.

For the 2016-17 year, successful candidates will sail on separate freighters between the months of June and September, 2016.

The Objectives
The aim of this residency program is to generate a new work or body of work (which, depending upon the artists’ practices, may take place aboard the vessel or in the months following) in response to the sea voyage, which will then be exhibited before audiences at Access Gallery in the following months. For the extent of the residency voyage, artists will also be requested to keep a daily “log.” Subsequently published by Access, these logbooks will accumulate as an ongoing collection of bookworks, chronicling diverse responses to a shared experience of being at sea.

The Proposal
In keeping with our organizations’ mandates, proposals will be considered from emergent visual artists working in any and all media. Submissions will be adjudicated by committee and successful candidates will be notified in late March, 2016.

Applicants are encouraged to propose projects that consider issues resonant with sea travel and with the ubiquitous but, for most of us, largely invisible world of the global shipping industry. These may include, but are by no means limited to, matters of trans-Pacific connectivity, traffic and trade; maritime histories and culture; and, significantly, notions of time and space, since crossing a great expanse of water is experienced far differently on an ocean vessel than by more conventional air travel.

The Logistics

• The Residency will cover the cost of travel aboard the freighter (single cabin and all meals), accommodations for four days in China, and return airfare back to Vancouver
• Residency artists are expected to fund their own travel to and from Vancouver (the point of departure)
• Residency artists must prove their own purchase of international travel insurance and to secure all necessary travel documents
• Artists are free to travel at their own cost within Asia following disembarkation, provided details are arranged in advance for the purpose of booking return airfare from Shanghai
• Residency artists are expected to arrive in Vancouver prepared to work independently on his/her work for the duration of the residency in whatever capacity that is possible or to use the voyage to gather research in order to produce the new work independently following the close of the residency

Conditions at Sea

• Artists must understand that there is no internet connectivity aboard ship. Email is often reserved only for ship’s business
• Residency artists must produce medical certificates proving good health. There are generally no doctors on board. The vessel has a well-stocked ship’s dispensary and a treatment room. The Captain and officers have the necessary skills to give first aid and are also able to provide further treatment
• Since this is a working ship (with no elevators), there are unfortunately no facilities for individuals requiring wheelchairs, walking sticks or crutches, etc.
• All meals are taken in the officer’s mess
• Sea voyages can be unpredictable and the artist must prepare for and manage any unexpected obstacles resulting from his/her time at sea (ie. Seasickness). Access Gallery and Burrard Arts Foundation cannot be held responsible for delays in the production of work due to these obstacles. The artist assumes responsibility for all costs of the research, production and shipment of any work produced while at sea.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
In keeping with our organizations’ mandates, this residency invites emergent visual artists, or artists entering an experimental phase of their practice, to submit proposals. They accept work in all forms of media, time based, process, research based, exhibition focus, social practice etc.

Access will accept ELECTRONIC submissions in the following format ONLY:

• one page cv
• artist statement (maximum 250 words)
• a residency proposal (maximum 250 words) accompanied by a maximum of 5 images (if applicable)
• maximum 10 images (or hyperlinked videos) of relevant previous work
• please format your proposal into a single pdf (under 20 mb)

SUBMIT to: submissions@accessgallery.ca

DEADLINE: Monday, February 15, 2016
Please title your email subject line “23 Days at Sea 2016”

Tuesday January 12, 2016 – Wednesday January 20, 2016

(The Competition of the Competition of Competitions)

What does it mean to build? Traditionally, building has been defined as the assembly of parts or materials toward the creation of a whole. While to build is often perceived as an Apollonian pursuit, to destroy appears to be its Dionysian counterpart. Understanding that our built environment is the product of many forces, it can dialectically be reduced to the tensions between creation and destruction, addition and subtraction, and erection and demolition.

In a design culture focused on the superlative (the tallest, the newest, the priciest), in which destruction is often perceived of or produced by an act of violence, the processes of removal appear as secondary concerns or collateral damage. However, if we are to better understand the life cycles of our built environment, we must explore the possibilities and implications of Taking Buildings Down.

This competition of ideas is simultaneously a political act, a means of criticism, and a method of speculation.

Taking Buildings Down asks proposals for the production of voids; the demolition of buildings, structures, and infrastructures; or the subtraction of objects and/or matter as a creative act. Removal is all that is allowed.

ELIGIBILITY

This call is open to anyone interested in articulating visions for the future of our built environment.

CONTENT AND CRITERIA

Each proposal should consider and present three items:

1. A pre-existing current condition
2. A process of removal
3. A resultant condition of removal

Proposals should consider contemporary contexts. There are no limitations in scale or scope. The focus of the proposal may be on the process of removal, the resultant condition, or both.

Projects will be judged on their ambition, vision, methodology, and clarity.

PUBLICATION

Winning entries and any additional entries deemed to be worthy of publication will be included in a printed competition compendium released by Storefront for Art and Architecture.

QUESTIONS

Below are answers to questions we have received:

Q: Does the submission require both physical and digital copies be submitted?

A: Yes.

Q: Can the format of the submission be Landscape orientation?

A: Yes, as long as the size is 8.5″ x 11″.

Q: I want to submit a video, but file upload limit is 15MB, how do I do this?

A: Please submit a PDF with a still frame image and a link to download the video through Vimeo, YouTube, or your preferred web service.

JURY

Jeff Byles

Jeff Byles is the author of Rubble: Unearthing the History of Demolition, a wide-ranging investigation of “unbuilding” as a culture-shaping force. Deeply engaged in public design and its role as a catalyst for cultural innovation, Jeff has explored the built environment in his nearly 20 years as a writer, journalist, editor, and urban thinker. Jeff’s expertise in public design includes leadership roles at Van Alen Institute, where he oversaw research initiatives focused on urban form and well-being and helped lead design competitions and public programs devoted to transforming cities and public spaces.

Through his role in the design and consulting practice Being Here, Jeff works at the intersection of site and society to inspire ecological, social, and economic vitality in communities through creative collaboration. Jeff is the co-author of A History of Design from the Victorian Era to the Present, and he has lectured internationally on architecture, landscape, and the future of the city. Since 2014, Jeff has served as President of The Fine Arts Federation of New York, an advocate for design excellence in New York City and beyond.

Keller Easterling

Keller Easterling is an architect, writer and professor at Yale University. Her most recent book, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space, examines global infrastructure networks as a medium of polity. Another recent book,Subtraction, considers building removal or how to put the development machine into reverse. An ebook essay, The Action is the Form: Victor Hugo’s TED Talk previews some of the arguments in Extrastatecraft.

Other books include: Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and its Political Masquerades, which researched familiar spatial products in difficult or hyperbolic political situations around the world, and Organization Space: Landscapes, Highways and Houses in America, which applied network theory to a discussion of American infrastructure.

Easterling is also the co-author (with Richard Prelinger) of Call it Home: The House that Private Enterprise Built, a laserdisc/DVD history of US suburbia from 1934–1960. She has published web installations including: Extrastatecraft, Wildcards: a Game of Orgman and Highline: Plotting NYC. Easterling’s research and writing was included in the 2014 Venice Biennale, and she has been exhibited at the Rotterdam Biennale and the Architectural League in New York, among other venues. Easterling has lectured and published widely in the United States and abroad. The journals to which she has contributed include Domus, Artforum, Grey Room, Cabinet, Volume, Assemblage, e-flux, Log, Praxis, Harvard Design Magazine, Perspecta, and ANY.

Pedro Gadanho

Pedro Gadanho is the Artistic Director of the forthcoming Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (MAAT) in Lisbon, Portugal. Previously, he served as Curator of Contemporary Art and Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.During his time with MoMA, Gadanho was involved in the Young Architects Program (YAP), whim aims to foster new ideas in young architects through installations at MoMA PS1, the MAXXXI Museum, the Istanbul Modern Museum, and CONSTRUCTO

From 2000 to 2011, Gadanho was a professor and architecture faculty member at the University of Porto in Porto, Portugal. He also previously served as director and curator for ExperiementaDesign for three years.

Gadanho attended Politecnico di Milano before earning his master’s degree at the University of Kent and his Ph.D in architecture and mass media from the University of Porto.

Jorge Otero-Pailos

Jorge Otero-Pailos (b. 1971) works at the intersection of art, architecture and preservation. He has been exhibited at major museums, festivals, galleries, and foundations; notably, Manifesta7 and the 53rd Venice Art Biennial. In 2009, he was listed as one of ten young Spanish artists to watch in Architectural Digest and was featured that same year in the BBC TV’s documentary Ugly Beauty alongside Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Carl Andre, and Yoko Ono. He has received awards from major art, architecture, and preservation organizations, including the Kress Foundation, the Graham Foundation, the Fitch Foundation, and the Canadian Center for Architecture. In 2012, he received the UNESCO Eminent Professional Award. He is a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of Puerto Rico.

Christiane Paul

Christiane Paul is Associate Professor and Associate Dean at The New School’s School of Media Studies and Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She has written extensively on new media arts and lectured internationally on art and technology. Her recent books are A Companion to Digital Art; Digital Art; Context Providers – Conditions of Meaning in Media Arts (co-edited with Margot Lovejoy and Victoria Vesna); and New Media in the White Cube and Beyond.

Annabelle Selldorf

Annabelle Selldorf is the Principal of Selldorf Architects, a 65-person architectural practice that she founded in New York City in 1988. The firm has worked on public and private projects that range from museums and libraries to exhibition design and a recycling facility.

Selldorf Architects recently completed the Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility, a new recycling facility and education center on the Brooklyn waterfront. The firm’s renovation of The Clark’s Museum Building in Williamstown, Massachusetts opened to critical acclaim in 2014. Selldorf has designed numerous galleries including the ground-up 30,000 SF LEED Gold building for David Zwirner on West 20th Street, as well as projects for Hauser & Wirth, Barbara Gladstone, and Gagosian among others.

NOTIFICATION

Winning entries will be announced in February 2016.

REGISTRATION

Entrants are required to register for the competition in advance of the submission date. Registrations must be received by January 12th, 2016 before midnight.

Applicants can register online at https://storefront.submittable.com/submit

There is a $50 registration fee ($25 for Storefront members). Projects that have not registered by the January 12th deadline will not be reviewed.

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

Applicants will submit an application package. The package should be in 8 1/2″ x 11″ page portrait layout, with no more than 20 single-sided pages. It should be delivered in the following formats:

– A digital PDF (15 MB or less), uploaded to the competition platform no later than 11:59 p.m. on January 20th2016

– A bound proposal documentation book, delivered no later than January 21st, 2016 at 6 pm to Storefront’s office at 611 Broadway, Suite 634, New York, NY 10012. Proposals received after this date and time will not be accepted. (Note that Storefront’s office is located at a different address from its gallery space).

APPLICATION PACKAGE CONTENTS

Physical applications must be packaged in a sealed envelope with registration number written clearly and legibly on the outside. The package should contain the following contents:

A: COVER SHEET

Please fill out and include the cover sheet as the first page of your submission. Access the Cover Sheet.

B: PACKAGE

Please include the following materials in a bound letter-size booklet (maximum 20 pages, including supplemental material):

1. Application Cover (with proposal title and registration number)
2. Location/Context
3. Mission Statement (500 words or less)
4. Three images/plans/diagrams depicting:

1. The current condition
2. The process and methodology of removal
3. The resultant condition

FORMAT:

Participants can submit support material in the following formats:

• Videos (maximum 3 minutes in length)
• Models (maximum size 10”x10”x10”)
• Additional documentation material as considered essential by the applicants (maximum 10 pages)

SCHEDULE

Thursday, November 5 - Competition Launch

Tuesday, December 1 - Deadline for Submission of Questions

Tuesday, December 22 - Publication of Questions and Answers

Tuesday, January 12 - Registration Deadline

Wednesday, January 20 - Digital Submission Deadline

Thursday, January 21 - Physical Submission Deadline

February - Results Announced

ANONYMITY

Entrants may not communicate with members of the Jury about the competition in any way or form until there is a public announcement of the winner.

No partner, associate, or employee of any Jury member may participate in the competition.

Any entrant who violates these rules will be disqualified.

DEADLINE

Digital submissions must be entered through the competition platform byJanuary 20th, 2016 at 11:59 pm

Physical submissions must be delivered to the Storefront for Art and Architecture office on or before January 21st, 2016 between 11 am and 6 pm EST

Please note the office address below:

Storefront for Art and Architecture

611 Broadway, Suite 634

New York, NY 10012

Mailed submissions must arrive at the office by the submission deadline (note that the deadline is the date of receipt, not a postmark date).

NOTIFICATION

Winning entries will be announced in February 2016.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Participants interested in additional academic, cultural, and philosophical references can consult the Taking Buildings Down bibliography (created by INCA):

http://storefrontnews.org/programming/party-bibliography-on-demo/

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Copyrights for project submissions shall remain the property of the author.

Submitted materials shall not be released nor exposed to the public, press, or other media before the announcement of a winning entry or the cancellation of the Competition. Applicants who violate this will be disqualified.

Participants agree to permit Storefront to use the submitted materials in public posts, publications, or exhibitions, or for archival, promotional, educational, and other purposes at its discretion. The Jury and/or Storefront for Art and Architecture reserve the right to cancel or suspend the Competition for any reason, including those causes beyond the organizer’s control that could corrupt the administration, security, or proper participation in the Competition.

Storefront for Art and Architecture assumes no responsibility for postal, email, electronic, technical, or natural conditions that prevent the receipt or judging of a Competition submission or any part thereof.

Storefront for Art and Architecture reserves the right to amend these Guidelines at any time without notice.

No information contained in submissions shall be deemed confidential and such information may be shared with other governmental entities. Therefore, please do not submit any information that may be deemed proprietary in nature. Competition sponsors shall not be liable for any costs incurred by any respondent in the preparation, submittal, presentation, or revision of its submission. Competition sponsors shall not be obligated to pay and shall not pay any costs in connection with the preparation of such submissions.

CREDITS

This competition is curated by INCA, the winners of the Special Prize for Storefront’s Competition of Competitions. INCA is a collaboration between David Bench and Jonathan Chesley, architects at Selldorf Architects in New York who have an interest in conceptual work as a complement to practice.

You can read more about the competition and the winners here: http://storefrontnews.org/archive/winners-competition-of-competitions/

ABOUT THE COMPETITION OF COMPETITIONS

Launched in 2013, Storefront for Art and Architecture’s “Competition of Competitions” asks participants to create a brief that formulates the questions of our time and defines the agents that should pursue the task of commissioning visions for the future.

The competition provides a space for critical thought about the way competitions and commissions are organized, and allows participants to rethink the structure, content, and stakeholders of competition briefs. In doing so, participants deliver new and provocative forms of engagement with the economic, political, and social context surrounding the development of our cities.

For more information, please see: http://storefrontnews.org/programming/competition-of-competitions/