The topic: heresies in their multiple forms

The choice of the topic was prompted by the artistic work of Sineglossa, who, as a performing arts group, have been conducting a research about heresy for the last three years. The process culminated in White Heresy, which was first realised as an artistic intervention in shop windows and art galleries in Ancona, Rome, Kraków and Wroclaw, and then was developed in former churches, including in St Bernard Church in Jesi (Ancona) and other repurposed buildings, including a former post office in Modena and an abandoned police station in San Sepolcro. The aim of the project is to imagine potential new uses for these buildings, including a venue for secular spirituality where new, ephemeral communities can meet to think and doubt through art.
Since the artists arrived some days before the opening, they studied each space and filled it up with new symbols. In all those spaces the spectators saw something that was at once a performance and an exhibition, but it also offered a moment of contemplation.
In Sineglossa’s Heresy the audience is surrounded by three different “actions” happening at the same time in three different parts of the venue, which requires them to be attentive or to choose a vantage point:

•  – The projection of the silent movie The Passion of Jean of Arc by C.T. Dreyer, which forms the skeleton of the work. It is a cult movie that Sineglossa post-produced. The group superimposed and inserted new frames corresponding to what is happening in other actions.
•  – The performance involving a 45-minute melting of an icon of Jean of Arc’s, who crumbles and becomes much more human and less iconographic. She steps out of the picture frame and enters the audience/witness space in front of her, asking the audience for a simple and effective action to be shared.
•  – The analog screening of ephemeral icons burning at a stake. Projected on the walls are images of saints, pop stars and political leaders who entered history with a solid identity, but they can’t keep their aplomb anymore.

Sineglossa has already shared its work with fashion designers, musicians, visual artists, perfomers and designers, who have contributed artistic elements that survive in successive presentations, creating a never-ending, temporary performance.
Being heretic means imagining a non-dogmatic vision of the world which the artists can face without fear because they are used to it because of the nature of their work. This means giving up certainties: the space and time conventions typical of the past centuries’ representation or some features of the dominant styles used in many mainstream artworks, often conceived with the sole aim of distracting and for this reason with a low level of complexity. The independent contemporary scene, despite national differences, is the place where artistic products and processes dissent from the standard models.
To be heretic it is not necessary to address social or political topics. The Heresies project welcomes groups of artists who produce works where the audience is challenged in interpreting the signs, where they can have an active role. “Heretical” is not just the topic, but the process itself, since it challenges the production and representation standards, questioning the artists involved in their creation processes as well as the audience participating in the event. The audience will be asked to put together their own personal experiences, assembling pieces of the different works happening close in time and space.
This is an attempt to create an ephemeral international heretic community, made up of audience and artists alike, around the dissent from the more abused and old-fashioned commonplaces, sharing together the creation of a new Reality, full of possibilities, not yet written down.

Objectives

• – creating a practical investigation into contemporary arts processes, promoting the creation of a community of artists, audience and curators;
• – supporting the work process proposed, giving the groups new artistic tools through the exchange of practices and content;
• – giving the artists the opportunity of international mobility;
• – giving the organizations involved the opportunity of building an international network.

How to get involved

If you wish to take part in Heresies, you are invited to submit:

•  – a description of your organization
•  – a video of the work you want to present
•  – a portfolio of the artists involved
•  – a description (up to one page) of how the work deals with the topic of “Heresy”.

The material must be emailed by 25 September 2015 to the following addresses:

jaroslaw.fret@wroclaw2016.pl and info@sineglossa.eu

For any further enquiries, please feel free to contact Sineglossa’s director

Federico Bomba at info@sineglossa.eu.

Sineglossa CV

Sineglossa has been a terrain for experimentation in the realm of contemporary arts since 2006. Based in Italy, it is a platform where artists can imagine, conceive and bring forth artworks on a local and international scale.

Sineglossa have presented their works in many international festivals, such as RomaEuropa (Italy), Fast (Italy), Civitanova Danza (Italy), Teatri di Vetro (Italy), Queer NY (USA), Be (UK), Queer Zagreb (Croatia), Vordingborg (Denmark), Cos (Estonia), Incontri Teatrali (Switzerland), AdriaticoMediterraneo (Serbia), Fringe Edinburgh (UK), Reminiscences (Poland), The World as a Place of Truth (Poland), and worked with visual art institutions, such as Palazzo della Penna (Italy) and Fondazione Volume! (Italy). Their previous work, UNdo, was co-produced by ETI (Ente Teatrale Italiano). Since 2012 Sineglossa have been working on Heresy, a long-term interdisciplinary project presented in heterogeneous urban spaces. It is co-produced by Chantiers Temps D’Images Fondazione Romaeuropa and the Grotowski Institute.

Awards:
2007: Special mention, Premio Iceberg (Italy)
2008: Special mention, Silent Art Movies (Italy)
2009: Winner, Germinazioni (Italy)
2010: Winner, Nuove creatività (Italy)
2011: Special mention, Premio Internazionale Vertigine, Fondazione Parco della Musica (Italy)
2013: Winner, Be Festival, Visual Theatre prize (UK)
2013: Winner, Move Award Label (Belgium, Estonia, Denmark)

Download Pdf