OPEN CALL:Arts at CERN Launches Connect in collaboration with Pro Helvetia

Connect, an international programme of Arts at CERN, is launched in collaboration with The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia as a platform to foster experimentation in the arts in connection with fundamental science. Over the next four years, a series of artistic residency opportunities will be announced to take place at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, and in partner scientific organisations worldwide in Chile, South Africa, Brazil and India.

For the last ten years, Arts at CERN, the Laboratory’s arts programme, has fostered the creative dialogue between art and physics through artistic residencies, art commissions and exhibitions. Artists across all creative disciplines are welcome to CERN to experience how the big questions about our universe are pursued by fundamental research. In the context of its Arts, Science and Technology programme, Pro Helvetia supports activities and projects exploring technological and scientific developments from an artistic perspective. Connect marks the extension of their joint efforts on supporting and promoting the exchanges between artists and scientists within a fundamental science context.

In 2021, two calls for entries of Connect are announced. The first open call of Connect offers one Swiss artist or artistic collective a three-month residency at CERN to further their artistic research immersed in the Laboratory’s community. After a competitive process, a jury of cultural experts and scientists will select one project proposal to be developed during the residency.

The second call, Connect South Africa, inaugurates the international programme. Swiss artists and artists from East, West or Southern African are invited to submit research-led proposals in connection with particle physics and cosmos sciences. One artist from each region will be invited to undertake a joint residency at CERN in Geneva, followed by a period in the array of astronomy observatories in South Africa, in connection with the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO).  In the following years, similar artistic residencies will be announced in Chile, India, and Brazil.

The two residencies are fully funded and supported by the curatorial teams of Arts at CERN, led by curator and head of Arts at CERN Mónica Bello, and Dr. George Mahashe, curator and lecturer at the Michaelis School of Fine at the University of Cape Town. The calls for entries will accept submissions until May 26, 2021.

Applications and further information about the calls and how to apply can be found on Arts at CERN’s website.

Subject to the evolution of the pandemic and the travel limitations, the residencies are expected to occur at the end of 2021 and the first third-quarter of 2022.