Manizales, Colombia
The organizing group of the Topological Poetics Research Institute (TPRI) call for applications to ecopoetics workshop 2024, which will take place in Manizales, Colombia from August 5-19 at Café Tío Conejo, a working coffee farm.
Applications Due: March 24, 2024
The workshop is open to all approaches and fields of study. We especially seek participants interested in innovative aesthetics, poetics, interdisciplinarity/transdisciplinarity, multimedia approaches, collaboration, ecological thought, and exploring new ways to think and enact the human/nature dialectic.
2024 THEME: Coffee, Labor, Ecology
Our Summer 2024 workshop will take place on a working coffee farm in Manizales, Colombia: Café Tío Conejo.
We will concentrate on the theme of “labor,” especially as it relates to coffee and ecology. While coffee need not be the subject of your own work, it is nevertheless a dazzling lens on life today, from contemporary geopolitics to colonial history, from questions of labor, value, capital, and economics, to culture, cosmology, and society. Indeed, coffee is intimately tied to the development of democracy, colonialism and globalization, and fueled more than one revolutionary political movement, such as in France and Haiti. The workshop will have ample time for you to pursue work of your own choosing, in addition to offering activity, collective thinking, and collaboration around questions of labor, coffee, and ecology.
For more context on how we will approach the theme of labor, please consult the application and expanded call list on the ecopoetics website, in addition to the following slideshow overview on ecopoetics and the 2024 workshop:
ecopoetics workshop 2024 slideshow
SCHEDULE
The workshop schedule involves alternating days of structured and open time. Generally speaking, on structured days, the group meets in the morning to discuss the day’s theme and a selection of texts (e.g. theories of labor and value in relation to aesthetic practice). In the afternoon, we will embark on a creative exercise in the environment surrounding Café Tío Conejo’s farm (e.g. a collaborative exercise oriented around picking coffee and cultural production). On open days, participants can work on their personal projects or meet in groups as they please. We will also occasionally be joined by scholars from the field on zoom for readings, lectures, and presentations.
There is ample space and accommodation to comfortably work on the farm in a more writerly/scholarly mode and/or in a more materials/media arts mode. And there are plenty of interesting ecological sites and processes to explore, such as bamboo forests, gardens, the broader biodiversity of the farm, water and hydraulic systems, and more. At the halfway point of the workshop, there will be a ‘work-in-progress’ event providing the opportunity for feedback, and at the end of the workshop there will be a public project presentation event. Participants will be encouraged to complete an object, text, or other outcome by the end of the workshop. There are also opportunities to visit ecoparks in the area, hot springs, other farms, and more, depending on the will of the group. While we will have a good amount of highly scheduled time, it is also important to us to keep some time open for spontaneity and exploration as the workshop progresses. In addition, Manizales, Colombia is home to several universities, and there may be potential for community/scholarly collaboration as well.
TO APPLY
Please fill out our application form here: https://forms.gle/xbpWeLbkUYVEX7vx6
The form will ask for the below items, which you might like to prepare in advance:
- A personal biography detailing relevant past artistic, academic, and/or professional experience. (300 words max).
- A “statement of intent” (in lieu of a “project proposal”) detailing what concepts, modes, materials, or discourses you may be interested in engaging with during the workshop. You might discuss ongoing projects here, but we are particularly interested in how they will be developed at this specific site, during this specific workshop. You should also include some thoughts on how you might engage with the environmental theme of “labor, coffee, and ecology” in your work. (1000 words max).
- Links to any online portfolios or other evidence of relevant previous work published or exhibited.
GUIDELINE FOR APPLICANTS
A maximum of 10 participants will be invited to join the organizing group of Brooke Bastie, Brent Cox, and Simon Eales. Preference will go to applicants whose statement of intent is most closely engaged with the concerns of ecopoetics workshop and the Topological Poetics Research Institute. A shorthand gauge for measuring such a closeness is: creativity (is the intended work innovative?), criticality (is the intended work rigorous and relevant?), and collaboration (would the intended work both contribute to and benefit from being developed in a group context?). We recommend you spend some time with the workshop slideshow and attend the informational call and/or watch the video. Please feel free to inquire with us to learn more.
COST
Two weeks accommodation at Café Tío Conejo, three meals daily, farm activities, all reading materials, and organizational fees: $1200 USD.
Travel and other food costs are the responsibility of each individual participant.
If you are invited to be part of the workshop, we will ask that a non-refundable deposit of $350 be paid to secure your place. The remainder of the fee must be transferred to the workshop’s PayPal account by the 1st of June 2024.
If you are affiliated with an institution of some kind, we strongly encourage you to seek out funding from that institution. Our participants have had great success with this in the past. We’re happy to facilitate securing funding for you in whatever capacity we can, such as writing letters, providing more information and/or any other documents that might be required in support. We are also working to raise funds between now and the workshop. What we raise may be used to offset the costs of the workshop for participants.
DEADLINE
We ask that all applications are submitted via the application form portal linked above (and repeated here https://forms.gle/Dk3h7Dgt6pTW7PTm8) by 18:00, 24 March 2024 (EST).
CONTACT
ecopoeticsworkshop@gmail.com
MORE INFORMATION
At our website: ecopo.art
In our pitchdeck, linked here:
ecopoetics workshop 2024 slideshow.
On our Info Zoom Call: Monday 26 February 2024 at 12:00 Eastern Standard Time
All welcome. Use this call link: https://buffalo.zoom.us/j/96721977490