Vancouver, Canada 

by Daniel Martin, Artistic Producer Upintheair Theatre (Atelier Gothenburg) 

Upintheair Theatre, under the artistic leadership of myself and David Mott, has been producing festivals since 2003. At the time, the community in Vancouver was divided by training institution – people tended to work only with others who had trained at the same one as they had. There was a Fringe festival (curated by lottery), and a few smaller festivals which were curated by invitation. Neither of us had trained somewhere that gave us access to the existing communities or opportunities, so when we launched our first festival, Walking Fish, it was important to us that it be by submission, so that we would see the work of any artist who was interested, whether we knew them or not. 

Walking Fish has grown and morphed over the years into the rEvolver (or, during COVID, the online e-Volver) Festival. Emerging, early, and mid-career artists from across Canada are invited to submit their work each fall for the spring festival. We are still committed to an open submission process, but our understanding of how barriers can work and the ways that submissions can themselves hinder access has evolved greatly. We have engaged artists from diverse backgrounds and communities to provide input on our submission processes, and we see the process in its entirety – from the forms and documents required, through to the curatorial decision making – as always in flux. A good friend advised us many years ago that you can only do “the next right thing”, and as we are far from perfect when it comes to access, we know we have to invite continuing change. This year for the first time we added an option for artists for whom submitting written proposals is a barrier to work with us on other forms of submission, such as verbal, visual, or digital. No one has taken us up on that yet, but we are excited by the possibility. 

Our curatorial team consists of our two Artistic Producers and two emerging Resident Curators, who join the company on overlapping two-year terms. The Resident Curator program has been developing slowly over the last 6 years, initially only involving the RC (at that time called the Guest Curator) in choosing the shows to be programmed. We tend to develop things slowly at Upintheair – constant tweaking of programs followed by big “evolutionary” jumps. 

Our Resident Curators are vital to the company and festival as they represent the community of artists that we serve. The Residents bring knowledge from “the front lines” – who is doing vital and important work, how younger artists are working – that we used to have when we were young artists ourselves. They also are often able to reach out into under-represented communities and help us build bridges to ensure we are able to use our resources to support artists who might not otherwise access the opportunities we offer. The “big jump” executed in this program was its recent expansion from one curator on a single year term, to two curators serving overlapping terms, so there is always a “first year” resident, and a “second year”. This is vital for the transmission of knowledge as individuals move through the roles, and also allows the residents a year to learn the organization and the festival, and a year to implement the kinds of changes they would like to see us making. It empowers them to really take ownership of the festival in a way that they couldn’t when it was only a one-year term, provides more time for growth and learning, and, for both parties, it serves to strengthen our relationships and allow us to benefit from each-others knowledge. 

Basel, Switzerland 

By Jurrian Cooiman 

Artists are invited to participate in CULTURESCAPES instead of going through the open call. Artists’ engagement and programming take most of the time in the planning stage of the festival. 

Normally, the research will start 2 years (or more) in advanced before the festival. The research process includes doing a lot of readings and following the media to understand the context of the chosen destination (which it could be a country, city, or region). Fellow international festival organizers and practitioners are a good source to discover and understand more about the chosen destination. All these information will prepare the ground base of topic lines to throw out during the conversation with locals. 

Follow by the research, the team will travel to the chosen destination to understand and find out the most burning issues that the majority are facing, and artists could resonate with. The issues could be from the talks with local curators, artists, and cultural institutes, such as environmental issue, colonial/post-colonial, and power distributions. 

Attending local theatre festival is one of the most effective ways to understand the current situations of the society. Performing arts always react fast to current topics and reflects what the society is going through. 

After the intense research, a group meet up with the artists will be held through the assistance of the local curators and programmers. Artists from different background will be given 5-10 minutes to present their works. 

The process is rather intense and unusual for a festival to work on the programming. Therefore, the Festival need to formulate the narrative of the topics with the matric of keywords in the context Swedish can understand. However, this creative process has created stronger commitment and involvement from every party, from Festival, institutions, artists, and audience.