Wa(l)king the city – A changing city through artists’ eyes

Placcc Festival, in collaboration with Metropolis – Copenhagen International Theatre, launches Wa(l)king the city, a series of artistic interventions in public space.


Covid-19 has drastically changed every aspects of our lives – among other crucially important fields cultural life and the use of public spaces have also altered. Cultural institutions are locked down, and we still have to wait for their re-opening, the artistic creation and the consumption of culture has moved to the digital sphere. Urban public spaces have emptied out, and even though they begin to be filled with life again, we (still) have a different relation to the city than before.

Wa(l)king the city – based on the curatorial concept by Trevor Davies, artistic director of Metropolis, Wa(l)king Copenhagen – aims at developing a series of artistic interventions along the two above aspects. We ask the participating artists to explore the changing city through their artistic micro-actions in public space – thus creating „a diary from a surreal daily life filled with uncertainty and anxiety, but also with room for hope, creativity and a sense of community”.

In the frame of the event series 20 artists – one artist in every 2-3 days – will create a 5-hour long walk in the city and stream artistic micro-actions online in every hour, 6 times altogether. These actions may reflect on the city, the spots, the situation, the artists’ own experiences and feelings, and they may take the form of an „action line” or modular variations adapted to the consecutive spots. Walks can lead through well-known locations of the city or can discover unknown and hidden places.

We will start the event series with contributions by artists who already worked with Placcc and In Situ network before (5 artists), followed by artistic interventions by artists selected through an open call (15 artists).

One of the main aims of Placcc is to present foreign artists and ‘companies’ of artistic projects in public space, as well as to initiate international collaborations, however, this year Placcc has decided to prioritize the commissioning of Hungarian artists over organising an international edition of the festival in September – thus supporting local artists to perform after a 2-months of ‘forced’ break.

The present budget allows Placcc to commission 20 artists, but we are planning to “sell tickets” to the artistic interventions at Eventbrite, thus our audience also can contribute and give opportunity to further artists.

The artistic micro-actions can be followed online at Placcc Festival facebook page, as well as the websites placcc.hu and in-situ.info, but a random audience can bump into them in the city (we don’t announce the locations of the micro-actions). Thus, the online consumption of culture may gradually give space to the live reception of artistic projects. The online-streamed interventions will be available at Facebook, and the mentioned websites after the events, but also a film will be edited of them – which will be a unique documentation of the city in the Covid / post-Covid era.

Our call for participation will be open for artists from all artistic fields (theatre, dance, circus, music, literature, visual arts, photography, architecture), living and working in Hungary, with concepts of solo or duo interventions (but the jury will prioritize solo concepts). Artists undertake to stream their interventions online in every hour – organisers will provide technical support prior the actions (but, of organisational and conceptual reasons, they cannot provide technical assistance on location). Furthermore the artists undertake to follow the actual health regulations (face masks, safe distancing) throughout their actions.

Fees for the artistic contribution: 120.000 Ft / artist (in case of a duo: 200.000 Ft)

To submit your application, please send

• a project concept and project description (max. 3000 characters)
• a route plan
• your CV / bio / artistic portfolio

to placcc.organiser@gmail.com.

Application deadline: 8th June 2020

Decision on the applications by: 18th June 2020

Beginning of the event series (with contributions by invited artists): 12th June 2020

Beginning of the event series (with contributions by artists selected through the open call): 26th June 2020

Concept: Trevor Davies (Metropolis / Københavns Internationale Teater)

Jury: Kitt Johnson (X-Act, DK), Beáta Barda (Trafó), Tamás Jászay (revizoronline.com), Ambrus Ivanyos (Meetlab)

Producers: Dóra Trifonov, Fanni Nánay (Placcc Festival)

Technical support: Réka Tóth

Supported by: Metropolis / Københavns Internationale Teater, Summa Artium, In Situ network, Creative Europe