ANNOUNCING THE LAUNCH OF THE HYDRA PACE PUBLIC PROGRAM

Hydra PACE – Platform for Artistic Collaboration and Exchange is launching art residencies in Slovenia and Slovakia. Due to current conditions, the selected artists from Palestine will participate in the project with the help of online tools. The project is supported by the Anna Lindh Foundation and the European Union. The residency program of KAIR Košice Artist Residence is supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council.

Hydra PACE – Platform for Artistic Collaboration and Exchange is the collaboration of three partners from Slovenia (DobraVaga Gallery, part of Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, Ljubljana), Slovakia (international artist-in-residence program K.A.I.R. Košice Artist in Residence, Košice) and Palestine (Ramallah Municipality, Ramallah). The project aims to form a growing network of existing and new international artist-in-residence programs for established and emerging artists. The idea for the art residencies project evolved on the threshold of the pandemic crisis that challenged us to reconsider and redesign numerous projects and programs, including art residencies. Hydra PACE is thus offering a model of concurrent international residencies, with an emphasis on combined and flexible live–online activities for artists to network, collaborate, exchange practices and experience different social, political, and cultural contexts. Six visual or interdisciplinary artists, living and working in Slovenia, Slovakia or Palestine, were selected via open call to take part in a two-month residency in selected cities (Ljubljana, Košice, Ramallah). 

The selected artists are: Michaela Nagyidaiová (Slovakia) and Abed Alrahman Shabaneh (Palestine) for the DobraVaga residency, Nežka Zamar (Slovenia) and Mohammed Al Hawayri (Palestine) for the KAIR, Košice residency, and Jana Zatvarnická (Slovakia) and Đejmi Hadrović (Slovenia) for the Ramallah residency. You can read their presentations here.

Due to the recent armed conflict in Palestine, the Palestinian artists will participate in the project online and with the help of online tools until further notice. Likewise, the two artists selected for the residency in Palestine will present their work at the residency in Košice (Đejmi Hadrović) or Ljubljana (Jana Zatvarnická). The partners also anticipate moving the final meeting from Ramallah to Košice.

The first public events within Hydra PACE will be a Zoom discussion with artist Abed Alrahman Shabaneh on June 17, a workshop by Nežka Zamar in Košice on June 22, and the KAIR open studio in Košice on June 30.