Fresh A.I.R.

Information

The Fresh A.I.R. scholarships will be awarded for 6 months. The value of the scholarship amounts to a total of 1,900 euros per person, per month. This amount is broken down, as follows:

• Rent-free living (including electricity and Wi-Fi) of around 1,000 euros per month for the duration of the stay.
• Cost of living subsidy of 500 euros per month for the duration of the stay.
• Cost of materials subsidy  of 300 euros per month for the duration of the stay.
• Cost of travel subsidy (fares within Berlin and surrounding areas) of 100 euros per month for the duration of the stay.
• Coverage of the second home tax for the duration of the stay.

For questions about the scholarship, please write an email to FreshAIR-office@stiftung-berliner-leben.de.

Funding Priorities

Information

The Fresh A.I.R. scholarships of the Stiftung Berliner Leben offer artists and cultural practitioners the time, space and resources to devote themselves to an artistic project in accordance with the foundation’s funding priorities. Up to 13 artists are invited to live and work in our artist residencies in Berlin for 6 months.

Thematic call  – »PICTURING DEMOCRACY «

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. »PICTURING DEMOCRACY: 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. »PICTURING DEMOCRACY: 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. »PICTURING DEMOCRACY: 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

Application

With the Fresh A.I.R. scholarships, the Stiftung Berliner Leben supports:

• artists from EU member states residing outside of Berlin,
• artists from Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway
• artists from the field of Urban and New Contemporary Art, and
• artists seeking cross-genre exchange with art forms of Urban Contemporary Art.

General Requirements

• The project must be clearly recognizable as a current and unpublished project and meet the quality standards of the program.
• There is a residence requirement.
• Grant applications and grants from third institutions must be communicated.
• Each scholarship holder commits to prepare and implement a workshop.
• Each scholarship holder undertakes to attend events of funding partners and the UN Museum (for example, readings, panel discussions, talks, etc.).
• Each fellow agrees to attend a final presentation of works.
• There is a willingness for cultural and artistic exchange with the Stiftung Berliner Leben and the Berlin area.
• Further conditions and exclusion criteria can be found in the funding guidelines.

The scholarship has no age limit. It is irrelevant whether the applicant has a university degree or not. Scholarships are awarded to individuals. Former scholarship holders of the Fresh A.I.R. scholarship are excluded from reapplying.

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Jury

Selection is made by a rotating jury. The decision of the jury is final and may not be challenged. There is no legal claim to the awarding of a Fresh A.I.R. scholarship. Applicants will be notified of the decisions, but not the reasoning.

For questions about the scholarships or the jury , please write an email to FreshAIR-office@stiftung-berliner-leben.de.