“A river is a living, dynamic thing…” by Heraclitus
Design by Surprise Media
Moving to a hybrid format for Flow•embody in site 2023
The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus said: “A river is a living, dynamic thing, an architect of its surroundings. It changes all the time. That’s its beauty.”
The artist collective that creates Flow is constantly reenvisioning and reimagining its form as we respond to the current circumstances and needs of our community. Holding dear is the concept of live performance as an embodied experience to be shared with the public and as creative practitioners being like a river responding with outdoor sites in nature and in the city. Artists have created work in diverse contexts at street corners in Tokyo, Japan, concrete streets with parked cars in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Australia and in the forests of Edmonton, Canada. Our artist community reaches far and wide working in response to our local surroundings. Our mantra is to ‘act local, think global’ a statement created by the feminist art historian, Lucy Lippard.
The community of artists that attend Flow is international and are mutually commited to working in outdoor contexts. The last two symposiums have been online and this year we are moving to a hybrid format. What does this mean? The practice-based workshops will be in-person and the artist presentations/performance lectures will be online. The in-person event will happen in Chicago & Rotterdam this year. Flow is an intimate gathering of artists from around the globe. The public performances created in the workshops will then be realized in public space in week 3 and live streamed to watch parties around the world.
In addition to the finale performances ieke Trinks is curating an Inter-city project with eight artists that will happen on Sept 23 & Sept 30 in partnership with WORM, Experimental Sound Studio and Chicago Park District.
Dates and Times
This year at the hub spaces in Chicago & Rotterdam will host in-person workshops that will be scheduled from Sept 11 - Sept 17, 2023. In week 2 the facilitators will be available to mentor workshop participants to select a site to perform in each respective city between Sept 23 - Oct 1, 2023. There will still be a program of online workshops and we are cogniscent of screen time scheduling and limited slots are available so we recommend early registration that will open on July 5.
The desire to move to an in-person program is a natural transition for us as performance artists working in live outdoor contexts in cities and with nature. We hope that this will provide greater support in terms of the technology, and we are thrilled to be partnering with Experimental Sound Studio for a third year running and WORM for the first year. Both organizations will be offering tech support for the live streaming of the public performance festival that will happen from Sept 23 - Oct 01, 2023. As a means of developing the technological production of this year’s program host institutions like LePARC, Montreal and (maybe you?) can host a watch party as the live public performances are happening around the globe. The concept of the watch parties is for people to facilitate community gatherings that inspire and engage diverse audiences in public performance practice. Let this be a moment, be a time when we can be re-connected, rub shoulders, and hug our friends again sharing the same air.
We are committed to bringing unexpected encounters to public spaces engaging diverse audiences in embodied exchanges that can inspire hope, engage people in diverse ideas and exchanges, and as Heraclitus states - “bring beauty” to our lives.
Each year at Flow one of the artists in the outofsite_chi collective has curated a special event at Flow as the finale performance event. These artists receive a stipend and a free registration to the online lecture program. This year we are supporting eight artists to collaborate who are working to develop and innovate live streaming techniques into live performances happening in Chicago & Rotterdam. We will be sharing more info about this exciting initiative as we move into the Spring and Summer as collaborations evolve.
Lastly, due to kind support from three institutions and organizations so far, we are providing full scholarships to Flow 2023. The application for full scholarship will be open in August 2023 and we encourage all artists who have a public performance art practice to apply.
Additional Notes
All artists who are selected into the curated program and by the jury panel to present @Flow2023 will receive a complimentary pass to the lecture/presentation program. Please note outofsite_chi functions as a voluntary organization who is not funded for our labor - we are a labor of love but strive within our capacity to raise funds to support our artist community.
outofsite_chi is a collective group of racially diverse artists who identify as feminists, trans artists, queer, and non-binary folks. Working in public spaces is a political act as we seek to engage in the social justice work of reclamation of social spaces. We work collectively engaging in research questions and conversations about our practice, we generate ideas re-imagining the fluid architecture in which we live and wish to shape for greater equity and diversity to encourage greater empathy, understanding, and respect to transform our public spaces.
By wishing to participate in this symposium you are entering into a mutual relationship of care with the community and organizing collective.
