In 2021, PLACCC launched Sensing the City, a series of experimental micro-interventions by participating artists responding to pressing environmental issues.
This year’s series of events will take place from 3 to 8 September 2024 in various locations across the city.
“The city unfolds itself to us through our senses. We explore our environment, its rhythm, atmosphere, texture, as well as its current condition, the impact of our individual and social practices through sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. Appearing in public spaces, engaging agents of urban life and their various senses, these artistic projects aim to reconnect audiences to local ecosystems and the fabric of the city. As such, in the projects of Sensing the City, the term “sensing” has a double meaning, as it refers to both the physical perception of the city (the reaction of the body) and the active sensitization of urban locations with the presence of the body.”
Éva Bubla, curator of Sensing the City
For this year’s series of events, we were once again seeking small-scale projects through an open call for proposals that, by appearing in public spaces – or shared spaces – and engaging urban dwellers, help to (re)connect them to the urban fabric and ecosystem by engaging their different senses.
As it was important to us that the evaluation process should be based on the principle of equal opportunities, we asked applicants to send us the concept and project description anonymously.
In this way, the jury – Éva Bubla, artist-activist, curator of Sensing the City; Ádám Kobrizsa, urban dweller, civil engineer, co-founder of Mindspace and co-owner of Lumen Café; Fanni Nánay, artistic director of PLACCC Festival – decided on the concepts of the anonymous applications evaluating the relevance of the questions raised, the professional grounding, the novelty of the creation, the possibility of interactivity or participation, and then the shortlisted projects were selected taking into account the previous artistic practice and professional experience.
Each selected micro-intervention is accompanied by a thematic discussion, with the aim of reducing the overly broad and difficult-to-integrate phenomena of climate crisis and sustainability through public, often site-specific art actions and complementary discussions, The more specific problems that have contributed to and are contributing to the serious environmental problems should be made more comprehensible and understandable by combining the sensitising potential of art with the informative nature of the discussions.
Projects included in Sensing the City 2024:
Éva Freund: Layers of Water
Csilla Hódi – lutzz&bog – Planty Warhol: Micro-cruising
Boglárka Jakabfi-Kovács: What you see: a public affair
Viola Mangel: Presence in-between
Anita Patonay – Viktor Bori: Water level
This project is realized as part of the IN SITU (Un)common Spaces international collaboration project. IN SITU (Un)common Spaces is supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.