Kick-off meeting with the SAiR artists

The SAiR project will be strongly committed to nurturing the talents and supporting the art practices of eight artists who will be hosted in residential centres in Ljubljana, Prague, Madrid and Athens for 2 to 3 months each.

Before the implementation of the first residency at MGLC Švicarija in Ljubljana (December 2023–February 2024), we invited all participating artists to an online meeting. Lea Culetto and the duo Small but dangers (Slovenia), Sara García Fernández and Adrianna Szojda (Spain), Lenka Kubelová and Olga Staňková (Czech Republic), Maria Nikiforaki and Christina Zampoulaki (Greece) participated in the meeting at which we discussed the objectives of the project and the plan of implementation. The SAiR partners presented their centres and capacities for artistic production.

Each artist presented their art practice and proposed a project that will address the SAiR theme of "sustainability". Although the artists come from different countries and have specific theoretical and practical backgrounds, there were some common points. All artists will incorporate sustainability into their art projects, both theoretically and practically. Working strategies (such as "do-it-yourself", "do-it-with-others" and "re-cycle") will be strongly incorporated within the proposed projects. The artists will also question the impact of the arts and the art system in society and raise questions about:

• the human and non-human body/bodies, the movement of other than humans;

• the inequality of women and gender power;

• sustainable ecology, contemporary escapism, environmental racism;

• materiality of creation, politics of emotion and resistance, hospitality;

• food ethics and rituals, food as a communicator, food waste;

• agents of public (cultural) infrastructure, non-hegemonic practices.

Each artist will develop their project step by step, from one residency to the next. Depending on the technical capabilities of the residential centres, the artists will prepare a joint presentation at the end of the SAiR project in 2025.