Apples & Oranges
Open call 2021 (extended)

APPLES & ORANGES

Combining a curated fair with a lively public programme of performances, interventions, and talks, the event presents a variety of material, digital, and performative approaches to artists’ publications. It not only provides a platform for artists and their works, but by reaching across disciplinary boundaries, it stimulates refreshing interactions and new connections between participants and public.

FOR WHOM?
Artists from all backgrounds, in all stages of career development, who engage in experimental publishing and writing practices are welcome to apply.

HOW TO APPLY?

Send the following documents to communicatie@ciap.be:
– your CV
– a short portfolio or a link to your website
– a short description (ca 200 words) of your idea for participation –  What would like to present during Apples & Oranges?

The deadline for sending in the applications is Tuesday, the 7th of September 2021, at 23:59. Please send the files in PDF-format only.

PROCEDURE
The fair section and public programme are curated by a group of professionals from the partner organisations (see below). The selection takes place on invitation and via this open call. In the selection process, the quality and diversity of included practices will be taken into account. The list of the invited artists will be announced in mid-August, and the results of the open call will be made known in early September.

PRACTICAL INFO

Apples & Oranges takes place at the compressors hall in C-mine, Genk (1st floor of the Energy Building) on Saturday, 02.10.2021. The fair is open to public from 12 am to 18 pm. The participants can build up between 9 and 12 am (lunch provided) and deinstall after 6 pm.

We provide each participant with infrastructural and curatorial support. There is no participation nor representation fee, which means that all revenue goes directly to the artists. The entry for the public is free.

ORGANISERS

Apples & Oranges is organised by CIAP platform for contemporary arts, in collaboration with Krieg (Hasselt), FLACC workspace for visual artists (Genk), B32 (Maastricht), Zero- Desk / Carl Haase, and C-mine Genk.

Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg
becomes the new artistic director

photo: Roosje Klap

The two merging organisations appoint a joint artistic director to build together the common future on the C-mine site.

Orlando Maaike Gouwenberg (NL), curator and initiator working from Europe and the US has been appointed as new artistic director of CIAP, platform for contemporary art, and FLACC, workplace for visual artists. She will lead the two organisations through the exciting transition period into the common future. Still this year, CIAP and FLACC will merge, and in 2022, already as one organisation will move to a new location on the C-mine site in Genk.

Gouwenberg brings to the table a fresh perspective, underpinned by a substantial international network and experience. Currently, she is the co-curator for Melanie Bonajo’s presentation for the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2022. 

After running multidisciplinary exhibition space Expodium in Utrecht, Gouwenberg participated in the renowned de Appel Curatorial Program (2006-07) and worked at the research and production platform If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution (2007-11). During the directorship of Defne Ayas at Kunstinstituut Melly, she was involved in major projects by Alexandre Singh, Michael Portnoy, and Rana Hamadeh. In 2010, together with artist Keren Cytter and curator Kathy Noble, Gouwenberg initiated A.P.E. (art projects era), which focused on the development of projects that cannot be realised within traditional institutional formats or frameworks. Since 2012 she’s part of the short and mid-length committee at International Film Festival Rotterdam. In 2014, she founded the multidisciplinary residency program Deltaworkers in New Orleans together with Joris Lindhout, and in 2017, Gouwenberg joined the Performa team in New York as producer at large. 

The new director takes up the position in a particularly complex, fragile, and challenging context, but also one that requires new perspectives and experimental strategies.
“It is an unprecedented time that calls for outspoken choices,” she says. “We are at the tail end of the pandemic that has held up a mirror to the fast-paced, overcrowded capitalist world and forced the individual, on the one hand, to revert to small, local, sometimes lonely, physical ways of living, and on the other hand, expanded the possibilities of communicating, working, and presenting online. It is, therefore, a particular moment to look at how two strong locally-anchored institutions can consciously operate locally as well as internationally; in physical and virtual space.”

CIAP and FLACC are convinced that Gouwenberg, with her versatile experience and unfettered enthusiasm, is the best person to take the lead in shaping the vision for the new organisation.
“The DNA of the new organisation, originating from two existing institutions, is rich, layered and offers opportunities,” said the freshly appointed director. “It’s like a lichen where ‘1+1=plural’ is the rule and where specific combinations of chromosomes create the shapes that no one could have imagined in advance. It is this polyphony that bears potential and that drives me. The program that I want to develop for FLACC/CIAP will be tailor-made and will have a socio-political focus, building on the already existing basis. The organisation grows from the programme, in which the importance of art, the interest of artists and the connection with the public are key.” 

CIAP and FLACC
join forces at C-mine

Maximiliaan Royakkers

Promising developments on the art scene in Limburg as two organisations join forces. Still this year, CIAP, platform for contemporary art, and FLACC, workplace for visual artists, will merge into one organisation, which will move to a new location at
the C-mine site in 2022.

In 2018, the news of the future house for FLACC and CIAP at the C-mine site was announced. The architectural project, designed by 51n4e (Brussels) and Point Supreme (Athens), combines ateliers, living facilities, indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces, café, and a public garden. The project is supported by the city of Genk and the Flemish Community. In the last two years, CIAP and FLACC have been working behind-the-scenes on this new infrastructure, but also on the model for the new organisation that will inhabit it.

The two organisations jointly decided that merging is in the best interest of their shared future. The new organisation will combine the strengths and functions of both partners: FLACC, with their long-standing expertise as a workplace, supporting artistic development, and CIAP, with 45 years’ experience in mediating and exhibiting contemporary visual arts.

Working in synergy with C-mine and other like-minded partners, this new organisation will offer artists space, time, and resources to experiment and develop new projects, but also share them with others. With a broad array of activities — workshops, exhibitions, talks, social gatherings, and many more — it will become a new meeting space for artists, art lovers, neighbours, and broader public. The innovative, creative environment of C-mine and Genk — the city in constant transformation — provides a fertile ground for this new development. In line with Genk’s past as “station d’artistes”, a beloved refuge for artists, researchers, and thinkers, this unique context offers an opportunity to become an artist colony of the future.

CIAP and FLACC are currently developing and sharpening the profile, programme, and identity of this new organisation. Meanwhile, you can follow their current programmes via their individual websites.

CIAP & FLACC
a new house

In the coming years, CIAP (Hasselt) and FLACC aim to jointly build a new future on the C-mine site (Genk) with a new infrastructure that is to become the home for both organisations.

C-mine is a former mining site that was renovated in 2010; today it is a dynamic place for culture, art, architecture, education, science, research and technology. It is in this location and on the basis of a strong level of cooperation that both organisations will build – and the term building can be taken quite literally in this instance – their new infrastructure in the coming years.

CIAP, FLACC and the City of Genk are therefore pleased to announce that the architectural offices 51n4e (Brussels) and Point Supreme (Athens) have submitted the winning design for the new building. The Belgian-Greek duo succeeded in convincing the jury with a design that consists of 4 sustainable buildings that create a stimulating, flexible and innovative working environment.

The proposal incorporates the individual character of the site, but also makes bold statements about the future. The new building is to become a home for artists: either in residence or visiting, on the eve of a breakthrough or with heaps of experience, or with a need for repose or a desire to produce, reflect or experiment. We hope it will also be a place where you will feel at home.

The estimated time of completion is currently set for the spring of 2023.