Social Innovations Incubator - International Residency (25.10 - 14.11.2018)

"Social Innovations Incubator: Threads of Connection in Times of Radicalization" creates a network which connects the potential  of young people with the necessities of people and locations that have fallen short of access to culture, education and economic resources.

The Incubator sets the ball of change rolling by involving hundreds of volunteers who stimulate the realization of actual solutions to actual social problems. They work in the field using design-thinking, creativity and the art they have mastered - and then, in the long term, they develop their own social change ideas.

The project consists of a one-month artistic residence, and the Social Change Challenge and Art Innovation Challenge formats, which aim to provoke artistic and socially engaged people from multiple disciplines to work with communities as a way to find answers to actual social problems. 

International Residency (25 October - 14 November 2018)

Artists from Poland, Croatia and Cairo will work and create in Plovdiv. From October 25 to November 14, a photographer, a sculptor and an artist will explore key locations in the city. Artists are united by the idea of equal access of citizens to culture and the search for new ways of using public spaces in the urban environment. They apply their artistic experience to socially engaged activities and are involved in multidisciplinary group projects in Plovdiv. 

This is the third initiative of the Incubator for Social Innovations project for 2018 and it aims to create a creative urban environment by revealing the city's potential and involving new active participants.

Presentation (12 November 2018, SKLAD)

Each of the artists will focus on a specific topic and/or location related to Plovdiv. Their aim is to provide artistic insight into the city's current problems. They will present their observations and works on November 12 at SKLAD in The Tobacco City.

Anna, Elena, Marko and Hamdy as selected participants of the first international residency for socially-engaged artists met various local activists and artists and deepened their knowledge and observations on both the problems and advantages of Plovdiv.

About the artists:

• Anna Raczynska - a sculptor and visual artist from Poland. Anna transformed her fascination from the (once illuminated) sings spread around Plovdiv into a new message inviting us to rethink their function, past and possible reuse.
• Elena Apostolovski - a sculptor and a curator from Croatia. What does shared responsibility mean? How are traces of it visible in the everyday life of a city? The figure of Atlas will tell us more about the burden of being/ not being an active part of your community.
• Marko Zurak - a painter from Croatia. What do streets of Plovdiv tell about the local problems? What's the capacity of street art to build a community? Marko will present a piece of art, created on a street of Plovdiv together with "casual" passers-by.
• Hamdy Reda - a visual artist and а curator from Egypt. An interactive installation - A Dialogue with Self/working title - it is a dialogue where the other is a reflection of you. Literally and figuratively. It explores the dialectic relationship between opposing or parallel figures engaged in an urban space: intellectuals, artists, decision makers, activists and the general public.

The initiative is implemented in partnership with the international Tandem Europe Network.

"Social Innovations Incubator: Threads of Connection in Times of Radicalization" is a project of the Ideas Factory Association. Further information - ideasfactorybg.org.