call: Eye’s Walk Digital Festival 2022
Deadline: 30 April 2022
Call for entries
Open Call
to artists, thinkers, collectives καιByzantine bath // MEETINGS // THESSALONIKI
Thessaloniki is a city that generates desire. And desire creates meetings.The Byzantine Bath of Thessaloniki / “Koule Hamam” is a visible but also invisible meeting point of people (but also of ideas, religions, classes, sexes), on the occasion of caring for their body, a common and sensitive matter for each person.
The Baths, one of the most important cultural assets of Roman times, conveys to this day images of an almost utopian society, a utopia of equality.Christians, Muslims, Jews, all social classes and professions are cleansed in Loutra.
A place where the sexes move freely. A place where the body precedes politics and worship. A place of common pleasure. A place to feed and warm even the poorest people.When the Byzantine bath was built (between the 11th and 12th centuries), there were mainly Byzantine monasteries in the area. In the Ottoman period, the bath was called “Koule Hamam” from the Tower [koule] that gives the name to the area. In 1931, the journalist Kostas Skaltsas describes it as “the oldest, the most attractive and the rather interesting district of Thessaloniki”.
Today the area is called Koule Hamam, it is full of memories (the Bath closed in 1940), and cultural infuences.Guidelines for artists / Project GuidelinesThe project “Thessaloniki meetings: Looking at the Byzantine Bath / Koule Hamam” invites video & sound artists, performers, dancers, storytellers, musicians, poets, thinkers, collectives, activists, to create works that “talk” about Meetings of people, ideas, religions, genders, cultures, etc. and bring the global to the local, the private to the public, the invisible to the visible without any geographical or other restrictions..• For the Meetings, participants are encouraged to get in touch with artists, historians, guides, academics and groups from the city of Thessaloniki and gain insight about the city and its history (however you will need to have very specifc questions).
Ask us for the relevant information. (not obligatory)• For the Meetings, the participants are encouraged to work organically with the residents of the Koule kafe area, around the Byzantine Bath, to identify memories, oral narratives, current and past experiences as inspiration for their work. (not obligatory)
The digital projects that will be submitted can have a maximum duration of up to six [6] minutes.Performances can have a maximum duration of ffteen [15] minutes.The public space limits can be extended to other parts of the city.Want to learn more about the Byzantine Bath and its meaning?
Read these:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jlbxds8u6f2zr7n/A%20cultural%20history%20of%20Bathing.pdf?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hl0rs8eap9orye0/The%20byzantine%20bath%20of%20Thessaloniki.pdf?dl=0
The Eye’s Walk Digital team and curator Filia Milidaki are in charge of the artistic curation.It is possible for all or part of this production to appear in other cities in Greece and abroad as an opportunity for the public to connect with art in public space.
Submission of projects at info@eyeswalk.gr.
Deadline of project submission until April 30, 2022.
The production will take place in October 2022.
