20th July - 30th December December 2024
XXIII Cerveira International Art Biennial: for the first time ever, the international competition is now open for both artworks and art interventions
The International Competition for the XXIII Cerveira International Art Biennial is now open, and this year’s edition will feature both artworks and art interventions. The country’s oldest art biennial returns in 2024, from 20 July to 30 December, under the theme “Are you free?”.
The XXIII Cerveira International Art Biennial will invite artists and thinkers to reflect on the theme of freedom, discussing issues associated with the democratic values achieved in the April 1974 Revolution and on which the historical and cultural legacy of the Cerveira International Art Biennial, whose origins date back to 1978, is thus established.
The international competition for the XXIII BIAC is therefore looking for artistic proposals that can reflect on the present and echo the main issues of contemporaneity, emphasising the values of freedom, equality, diversity and representation of minorities, promoting contemporary artistic creation as a factor in the empowerment of citizens and the territory.
Aimed at artists from all over the world, the competition will award 20,000 euros in Acquisition Awards from the Municipality of Vila Nova de Cerveira. National or international applications are eligible, from solo artists or artist collectives with one or two recent works (produced within the last 24 months) that have not yet been exhibited, i.e. unpublished. For the first time, the international competition will also include proposals for artistic intervention, such as performance, workshops or other participatory and ephemeral projects that will form part of the event’s programme.
Each applicant must submit, by 11 February 2024, in accordance with the rules, a portfolio of their artistic career, a complete CV and a descriptive memory, which will be analysed by an international selection panel made up of the FBAC’s curatorial and programme team and four invited guests.
In addition to the international competition, the XXIII Cerveira International Art Biennial involves guest artists, curatorial projects, the “Free Transit” project, with artist-in-residence programmes in all the parishes of Vila Nova de Cerveira, the exhibition in tribute to the artist Graça Morais, who is celebrating 50 years of career; the cycle of international conferences on the theme of Freedom; and the project to strengthen the open-air museum, with guided tours.
It should be noted that the initiative is being promoted as part of the application entitled “Are you Free? – New perspectives on collections and creations for thinking about Art and Freedom” (2023 – 2026 – Sustained Support – Visual Arts Creation and Programme), which has the support of the Portuguese Republic – Culture / Directorate-General for the Arts. FBAC is also a member of the Portuguese Contemporary Art Network.
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