Fresh A.I.R.

We are facing complex challenges that jeopardize sustainable and peaceful coexistence. Questions about security, peace and future-proof social models are dominating social discourse. How can art contribute to a more optimistic view of the future, promote awareness of a peaceful future and inspire people to stand up for a peaceful co-existence? What artistic means are suitable for furthering the discourse on the greatest challenges for peace now and in the future? And what new, interdisciplinary collaborations between art and science, technology or activism are conceivable in order to imagine forward-looking ideas and solutions?

In »FUTURE VISIONS: Artistic Approaches to Peace«, we invite artists and cultural practitioners to apply with innovative projects that look optimistically towards the future and in which future-oriented and forward-looking narratives, scenarios and concepts are developed.

Funding will be provided for:
• Projects that take a critical look at the present and develop ideas for new political and social structures and propose alternative models,
• Projects that contribute to promoting self-involvement and/or strengthening personal self-efficacy, resilience and frustration tolerance as well as social support,
• Projects that address complex, multinodal relationships between security structures and the conditions for long-term peace and stabilization and develop possible scenarios for the further development of the security architecture to meet future challenges,
• Projects that involve actors from science, technology and social movements and promote and demand open dialog on global issues.

Download this public call as PDF here.

Art has the ability to convey the relevance and complexity of themes of our time in unexpected ways.
Under the title »I AM FLUX: The Freedom of Being and the Possibilities of Becoming«, the 10th class deals with the inexhaustible capacity for development and transformation of human beings and their perspectives on themselves.

We encourage artists to take a critical look at selected socially relevant thematic complexes and to apply with projects that contribute to raising awareness about the contents of the call and enriching ongoing discourses. Within the framework of »I AM FLUX«, three thematic fields of action, namely »HORIZONS OF BEING«, »WHISPERS OF EXISTENCE«, and »BEYOND LIMITS« are being introduced. Project ideas will be supported in which at least one of the three thematic focuses finds expression in the artistic works.

1. »HORIZONS OF BEING«
In the first thematic field of action »HORIZONS OF BEING«, artists and cultural practitioners are invited to investigate the multi-layered and dynamic nature of gender identity. Through artistic expressions, the focus is primarily on embodiments, practices and self-perceptions of people who do not identify with the gender assigned to them at birth.

Funding will be provided for:
• Projects that address the diversity and manifestation of gender identity and/or the development and shaping of gender possibilities, realities, as well as perceptions and representations,
• Projects that identify and critically artistically reflect upon the current heteronormative hierarchical structure of gender, both in its institutional and everyday routine forms,
• Projects that promote a broader conception of gender.

2. »WHISPERS OF EXISTENCE«
The second thematic field of action, »WHISPERS OF EXISTENCE«, is intended to emphasise the metaphysical dimension of art. Through artistic expression, the imagination is intended to be challenged and expanded in diverse ways.

Funding will be provided for:
• Projects that place art as a metaphysical activity at the center, addressing and reflecting upon ontological questions,
• Projects that artistically process a transgression of the experiential reality of the natural self.

3. »BEYOND LIMITS«
The third field of action, »BEYOND LIMITS«, serves as a platform supporting the exploration of various approaches through which art and creativity, in conjunction with other influences, endeavor to redefine the boundaries of the human in new ways.

Funding will be provided for:
• Projects that aim to experimentally expand human potential or those centered around (self-)creation within the imaginative space of natural or technological (further) development,
• Projects that examine ‘Creative Artificial Intelligence’ and the fundamentally changing possibilities of artistic expression resulting from the application of the latest technologies,
• Projects that delve into historical forms of surpassing bodily boundaries and explore the visions, opportunities, consequences, and dangers associated with them.

Download this public call as PDF here.

In the 9th edition of the artist scholarship, emphasis will be placed on the topics of play and childhood.
Under the title »UNSUPERVISED: Childhood Dreams and Fantasy Rebels«, the focus is on play as a creative force and culture-forming factor and connects with the potential of childhood.

Funding will be provided for
• Projects that incorporate playfulness and children’s worlds of fantasy and imagination, and that experiment with children’s pictorial languages and narratives,
• Projects in which children’s ways of playing are reflected and staged as a concept to perceive the world with autonomous rules,
• Projects in which childlike play spaces will be generated, which are aimed at creative production with children, and awaken children’s joy in playing,
• Projects that artistically ventilate philosophical approaches to play or production-aesthetic theories on the connection between art and play.

Download this public call as PDF here.

Read the artist texts and learn more about the project results of class #9.

The 8th year of Fresh A.I.R. is running under the title »LINGUISTIC XPEDITION«. It refers to the traditions of the artistic-literary avant-garde that dealt experimentally with language, such as Italian Futurism or multinational Dadaism. This also includes subsequent interdisciplinary and cultural-critical movements such as French Lettrism or Russian Transfurism.

In this year, the act of speech as a constitutive element of human perception and communication will be the focus of attention. The examination and the creation of verbal-linguistic actions are just as much of interest as the analysis of verbal thinking and verbal action. Aspects of current debates on the structural power of language, language-critical standards or the enforcement of discrimination-free language are to be advanced in creative ways. In addition, the scriptural form of language will be regarded as well as and potential forms of development of written language are to be worked out experimentally.

Funding will be provided for
• Projects that explore an experimental approach to spoken language and in which the involvement of local participants is included,
• Projects that focus on aspects of everyday language use and/or language and its communicative potential, critically reflecting on it in a linguistic-artistic-performative way or in autonomous, typographic forms of expression,
• projects that focus on the further development of written language (expressive power, functionality, etc.) or rethink linguistic signs in digital space (multimodality, interactivity, etc.).

Download this public call as PDF here.

Since the turn of the millennium, the global community has been facing a variety of political, economic and social challenges, such as extremist terrorism, financial crises and refugee crises, which have put our understanding of democracy and solidarity to the test. Most recently, the viral pandemic also shook the European community to its core and at times pushed it to its limits. Thereby, the pandemic-related decrees and restrictions on democratic freedoms served those who aimed to use emotional rhetoric and new populisms to influence opinion-forming processes and destabilize citizens’ trust in democratic institutions and free media. The degradation of public media as a reliable source of information complicates reasonable, fact-based discourse and democratic understanding between institutions and the population.

Art – essentially democratic itself, since it can be freely interpreted – needs democracy in order to thrive. Most recently though, art has experienced rarely seen restrictions in the time of the pandemic and temporarily fell silent as a critical corrective, as a means of social self-reflection and as a producer of political utopias. The call for proposals »PICTURING DEMOCRACY« of the seventh class of Fresh A.I.R. is aimed at European artists whose projects stimulate public discourse, develop strategies to protect democracy, and visually unfold imaginaries of future developments of democracy as a form of government.

1. »EXPLORING«
How did democratic societies develop and how is democracy practiced today?
In the first thematic field of action »EXPLORING«, artists are invited to analyze and process current events and political conditions, and to express them in their artistic projects.

Funding will be provided for:
• Projects that address theoretical models of democracy artistically,
• Projects that reflect on the current state of democracy and/or its history.

2. »PROTECTING«
In which ways can a democracy be threatened and what measures are conceivable to protect it?
In the second thematic field of action »PROTECTING«, the focus is on developing strategies to strengthen democratic values and institutions and to protect them from being attacked.

Funding will be provided for:
• Projects that critically address protests against and attacks on the democratic form of government,
• Projects that identify possible vulnerabilities of democratic forms of government and provide innovative ideas to strengthen democracy.

3. »RETHINKING«
Facing the future, what challenges do democracies have to prepare themselves for?
In the third thematic field of action »RETHINKING«, artists are invited to work out what democracy means in the 21st century and to imagine how it can develop in the future.

Funding will be provided for:
• Projects in which the mutability of democracy is considered and which address possible transformation processes,
• Projects that offer viable solutions for future challenges by engaging with analyses from the humanities and social sciences.

Download this public call as PDF here.

»REFLECTING MIGRATION« opens three thematic fields of action: »FRAMING«, »(RE)TELLING« and »LIVING«. Voices from different perspectives are made audible and visible in the various aesthetic and artistic forms of expression. Funding will be provided for project ideas in which one of the three thematic focuses is expressed through artistic means.

1. »FRAMING«
In »FRAMING«, the first thematic field of action, artists and cultural practitioners are invited to visualize
in their project how cultural difference is negotiated in contemporary social debates.

Funding will be provided for:
• Projects that reflect ideas and attitudes about one’s own or foreign cultural identities,
• Projects that critically discuss media representations of migration,
• Projects that address theoretical models of migration artistically.

2. »(RE)TELLING«
In the second thematic field of action »(RE)TELLING«, artists and cultural practitioners are invited to examine the current situation of new immigrants and to give people with migration experience a voice in their artistic project. The artistic presentation of worlds of experience and projection, of life situations and perspectives, and of desires, longings, and memories is at the center of this thematic unit.

Funding will be provided for:
• Projects that intend the participation of persons with migration experience or migration experts,
• Projects that emphasize personal life stories and personal perceptions,
• Projects that promote transcultural dialog between members of the home and the host society.

3. »LIVING«
City stories are always connected with stories of migration, in which migrants and their second or third generation descendants become visible in many different ways, (co-)designing and acting. In »LIVING«, the third thematic field of action, the focus will be on places designed by people from different cultural backgrounds that at the same time offer space for the development of diverse life strategies.

Funding will be provided for:
• Projects that make cultural identity visible in urban contexts,
• Projects that take a critical look at urban development issues,
• Projects that artistically reflect the heterogeneity of migrant living environments.

Download this public call as PDF here.

We solely fund projects of which content, implementation and planned outcome are compatible with the principles of Fresh A.I.R., the Foundation Berliner Leben and the free democratic basic order. Projects with racist, anti-Semitic, queer-hostile or otherwise exclusionary and denigrating content are excluded.