ARTOPOLIS

Artopolis Association was created in 2008 with the mission of organising cultural and community events focusing on site-specific art and art in public space.
The Association’s main activity is organising the annual festival PLACCC which presents an international and local selection of art forms at unusual places and in public space. It also supports public art projects of local (especially emerging) artists year-round.
PLACCC Festival, organised since 2008, offers a programme of artistic projects that step outside the theatres, galleries and concert halls, and take the site itself as creative principle.
The unconventional locations – be it a natural environment, urban public space or a special building – serve as a starting point for the invited artists, thus they explore its qualities and meanings in their work. Historical and contemporary references, stories, myths and memories embedded in the site are layered in a complex way. By realising the works in public spaces, they also change the attitude of the spectator, depriving contemporary art of its elitist character.
We present projects from a wide range of art disciplines (theatre, dance, music, film, visual arts, design, architecture) to our festival – the multidisciplinarity can inspire the artists, at the same time we are able to reach out for a more diverse audience. The artistic creation often involves local communities and rely on the participation of local habitants.
Each year, the programme includes works by local artists commissioned and supported by PLACCC, international co-productions with the participation of Hungarian artists as well as invited productions from abroad. So far, we have presented projects from 19 countries:
Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, Morocco, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, UK, Ukraine.
The consecutive editions of the festival are organised at the end of August – beginning of September, mostly in Budapest, furthermore two special editions have been realised: in Pécs, under the aegis of the European Capital of Culture programme in May 2010, and in a mixed and ambivalent district of Budapest (Csepel) in May 2013. After this latter edition Artopolis has continued working in Csepel, expanded their artistic activities to a more community-based and participative practices (see GyárKert project).
In 2021 we started PLACCC Dance, the dance-focused special edition of the festival, with aim of presenting varied and innovative dance pieces by Hungarian artists as well as of supporting them, even if only to a small extent, during/after the months of the pandemic.
Another important goal of our Association is to inspire and support young Hungarian artists, either by commissioning them to create works or by providing opportunities for cooperation and joint workshops with foreign artists.

In line with this aim, since 2021 we have been running a semi-informal production organisation, which aims to support Hungarian artists who have been working closely with PLACCC for several years, primarily in public spaces and site-specific projects, both financially and with production, distribution and administrative support. The members of the production organisation are EMPOWERmental, Femini, Brida Horváth, Meetlab, Dávid Somló, SVUNG Research Group. Former members of the organisation: Dániel Makkai / Transformative Association, Ziggurat Project.
Since March 2022, we have been running the Sandwich Bar Community Hub in István Street, Outer Erzsébetváros together with artists and collectives (some of whom are also active in the production organisation). For more information, see Szendvicsbár.