Re-Directing East / Designing Futures

Within an artistic and research-oriented project devoted to the relations between Poland and the countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Biennale Warszawa, together with the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, will host a month-long international curatorial residency. From over one hundred applications submitted to the Re-Directing East programme, five participants were selected to work throughout June with the teams from both institutions, as well as special guest experts. Aziza Harmel (Tunisia/Holland), Mariam El-Nozahy (USA/Egypt), Rachel Dedman (UK/Switzerland/Lebanon), Francesca Masoero (Italy/Morocco) and Radoslav Istok (Slovakia/Sveden) will have the opportunity to develop their individual projects concerning the relations between the former Eastern Bloc and MENA countries, and speak about them during an open meeting entitled North Africa – Middle East Europe. In the second part of the residency, the participants will work on alternative models of transnational cooperation, the possibility of building alliances and solidarity mechanisms outside of national states, as well as the model of transnational organisation of the future that would bring the concept of the planetary community into reality.