ShararaTech Challenge – Water, Energy and Self-Reliance on/around the Mediterranean
This is a call for proposals for tech-based artworks that represent innovative water or energy solutions for self-reliance of communities in or around the Mediterranean.
This call seeks installations that synthesize intriguing artistic concepts with novel designs for decentralized clean water or energy generation, distribution and storage.
Submissions should demonstrate systemic thinking by factoring contextual natural, cultural, and socio-economic conditions. Ideally a submission should propose a public artwork that has captivating easy-to-understand innate narratives that can foster the courage to creatively tackle problems deemed unsolvable, and the virtues of communal self-reliance.
Submissions that demonstrate the ability to make a successful intervention and a transformative impact with the potential for regional or global replicability would be more favorable.
Depending on a submission’s respective stage of development from design to prototyping and fabrication and on whether it had been exhibited before, a prize ranging from $30k to $50k will be divided equally among two selected artworks: One with the best fit for the Tunisian Sahara and one for Gaza Strip. Subject to the sole discretion of the Festival’s sponsors and affiliates, other submissions for other locations on the Mediterranean that meet the approval of the jury may get funding. Selected submissions will participate in the inaugural edition of an affiliate emergent desert-camp out event in the Sahara, ShararaTech Art & Science Mediterranean Festival, tentatively scheduled to take place 1-3 October 2016 and/or 1-3 April 2017.
Selected artists will be invited to publish articles in the Leonardo Journal at MIT Press under the directorship of Roger F Malina and guest editorship of Amal Alayan.
A high-caliber jury will be reviewing the submissions and making the selection. Ibtikar Venture Partners LLC and affiliates will manage the award and other potential funding of selected submissions. For Rules of ShararaTech Challenge and for further information visit ShararaTech Art & Science Mediterranean Festival website.
The deadline for submission to this Challenge is 31 March 2016.