OPEN CALL – UNIDEE Residency Modules: LANGUAGES, PLEASE / Winter Season 2025

About the Open Call

UNIDEE Residency Programs and Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte are pleased to announce an open call for applications for the modules of the winter season of the programme Languages, Please, curated by UNIDEE Visiting Curators Nina Fiocco and Gaia Martino. OVERVIEW Languages, Please is an invitation to a collective series of rehearsals that explores languages as geopolitical spaces of dispute, narratives, and encounters. It is a call to engage with the porosity of our bodies in action and the narratives that can infuse and strengthen our practice of remaining polyphonic, amid the crumbling circumstances of the present. To meet in a language embraces the paradox of feeling foreign but inside the language, consciously rejecting to be bound by borders and rules that the language itself may impose. The fragility and fleeting temporality of this process embody the very essence of the community as a political space: a plurality of possibilities forged by the acceptance of implicit differences and affective responses that sharing a language fosters in each of us. What is incomprehensible yet invisible—uncoded, unseen and unheard—is just as vital as what is comprehensible and visible. Moving beyond the individual existence as an isolated experience, our human and more-than-human bodies are constantly engaged in negotiating ecological relationships to defend our right to remain plural, precarious and complex. This is a call to delve into what it could mean to engage with sustainable acts of storytelling, reception, and the reclamation of spaces of coexistence—a n ongoing, heterogeneous multiplicity of stories so far, in which collective imaginaries emerge from the reorganisation of the senses, rewriting and acting for justice, rather than from resonance or empathy. It is about breaking the habit of synthesis, shifting our attention from the stories that worlds tell us to the intricate micro-processes that compose these stories—memories, muscles, and multiple interwoven connections occurring at once. The UNIDEE Modules programme is a short-term residency format for selected residents. Participants will have the opportunity to cohabit at Cittadellarte and engage in an immersive, week-long residency, delving into their ongoing practice alongside peers, invited mentors, and guests. Discursive and material frameworks will intertwine, fostering a dynamic space where collective practice unfolds. Each module is interwoven within the 2025-2026 Modules program, threading together the fabric of Languages, Please. To learn more about the project's context and objectives, please refer to the complete curatorial framework here. ABOUT THE RESIDENCY MODULES OF THE WINTER SEASON 2025 Module III – Writing Patterns: a proposal for divergent genealogies will take place from 2 to 6 December 2025, and it is led by mentors Zineb Achoubie and Lorenzo Sandoval. The workshop focuses on the questioning of the notion of writing. Text has been understood often mainly in its form of alphabetically inscribed system. Through different frames, this proposal introduces a variety of forms of writing: from the oral to the body movements, from the inscriptions in architecture to the configurations of textiles and patterns in ceramics, from sound to storytelling, the workshop explores practices that offer a counter-notion to the idea of text. Through that challenge of text, the proposal seeks to expand the notion of text into weaving, notation systems, and pattern making into understanding the multiple threads of knowledge production and memory inscription. The workshop focuses in interconnected genealogies: the first is the long term mutual influences between Andalucian cultures from different shores of the Mediterranean (on which Achoubie and Sandoval have been working about the last years); the second is the Amazigh forms of inscription (following Achoubie’s study of signs in Amazigh tattoos and textiles); and the third is the translations from craftsmanship into industrial systems of fabrication, focusing on textile in South Europe (which Sandoval has been researching about). Within these technical processes, the proposal will bring them together in relation to systems of accumulation or redistribution in those specific contexts. During the days of the workshop, the participants will explore these notions combining different activities together. Practical and theoretical approaches will be introduced by combining weaving and reading references simultaneously, while engaging in conversation, watching films and introducing some exercises. Module IV – “Word–Barricade: Distracting Language” will take place from 9 to 13 December 2025, and it is led by mentor Mauro Giaconi. The workshop “Word–Barricade: Distracting Language” proposes a collective exploration of languages in a state of clandestinity, understood as strategies of resistance and political transformation. We will start with a series of reflections and practical exercises around visual languages as tactics of illusion, confusion, and simulation, where creativity and imagination act as means to alter the perception of reality and imagine emancipatory and porous ways of inhabiting art as a political tool. The workshop draws on historical and cultural references in which language became a device of resistance: secret anarchist codes, immigrant urban slang, dances that conceal combat training, metaphors as arsenals, fake funeral processions to occupy cities, and the invention of languages from within dungeons. These examples will serve as points of departure for thinking about language in its clandestine and collective dimensions, activating a common imaginary capable of proposing alternatives to reality. Based on the backgrounds of the participants, the space will be structured as an open encounter for learning and experimentation, in which drawing, cooking, and linguistic invention exercises will be used to construct a possible collective and temporary language. Individual practice will be understood as a starting point for imagining complicities, codes, and dynamics of mutuality that allow us to expand the limits of communication and artistic thought. PARTICIPANTS We aim to invite a group of up to 12 residents to take part in each module. The programme is open to international participants of all backgrounds, whose engagement sits anywhere across the broad spectrum of cultural practice and research, with no restriction regarding disciplines, media or methodologies of work. Applications from artists, musicians, performers, curators, storytellers, writers, theorists, designers, activists, all are welcome and encouraged. We welcome applications from both individuals and collectives. If applying as a collective, please specify the number of participants and the nature of your collaborative practice. The selection of participants will be guided by the resonance between the poetics, concerns, and inquiries present in the applicant’s work and those articulated by the curatorial framework of the UNIDEE Residency Modules 2025-26, and the core themes of each module. Additionally, consideration will be given to the applicant’s interest to contribute to a program-based residency rooted in processes of active exchange and participation. PRACTICALITIES The Residency Modules will take place at Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte, in Biella, Italy. The UNIDEE and Cittadellarte spaces will host a large part of the programme, while further opportunities for exploring the urban and rural landscape of Biella and its immediate surroundings will be offered. Participants will be accommodated within the premises of Cittadellarte, in single rooms equipped with bedding and towels, and with the use of shared bathrooms. In case of participation in the workshop as a collective, they will be accommodated in a shared room. The residential spaces offer basic cooking facilities and communal resting areas. Arrival is expected in the afternoon on the day before the module begins, with departure scheduled for the afternoon of the day following the module’s conclusion. We are happy to welcome participants with children and/or small pets, ensuring a comfortable and inclusive environment for all. We are committed to meeting to the best of our ability any accessibility requirements an attendee may have; this will be discussed individually with prospective residents. N.B: English will be the common ground for interaction within the residency module, yet the work will not be confined to it. Languages will be approached as open territories, and participants will be invited also to engage with expanded, non-codified forms of communication, hybrid languages, and multiple configurations of interaction shaped by backgrounds, interests, and practices of all individuals within the group. Further information regarding practicalities and FAQ available here. EXPENSES & BURSARIES To ensure sustainability to the UNIDEE Residency Module Programs, the participation fee follows a participatory method: each selected resident contributes with a fee based on their financial context, monthly income, and personal circumstances at the moment of the module. The suggested fee is 280 euros per module, covering accommodation at Cittadellarte and administrative expenses. After the selection process, participants will be invited to share their proposed contribution. A limited number of partial bursaries to cover travels are made available to those who would not otherwise be able to participate. Please make sure to indicate in your application if you wish to be considered for this opportunity. Residents will be required to arrange and cover expenses for their travel to/from Biella and for the food/living costs whilst in Cittadellarte. The team at UNIDEE remains at your disposal to support you in the visa application process and to offer guidance and recommendations with travel arrangements. Additionally, the team will provide you with any documents you may need should you decide to pursue other funding opportunities through your local art councils or via international platforms / funding bodies.

What is Offered

Participants will have the opportunity to cohabit at Cittadellarte and engage in an immersive, week-long residency, delving into their ongoing practice alongside peers, invited mentors, and guests. Discursive and material frameworks will intertwine, fostering a dynamic space where collective practice unfolds. A limited number of partial bursaries to cover travels are made available. Accommodation in single rooms with shared bathrooms or shared rooms for collectives, with basic cooking facilities. Support for visa application and guidance for travel arrangements.

Requirements

The programme is open to international participants of all backgrounds, whose engagement sits anywhere across the broad spectrum of cultural practice and research, with no restriction regarding disciplines, media or methodologies of work. Applications from artists, musicians, performers, curators, storytellers, writers, theorists, designers, activists, all are welcome and encouraged. We welcome applications from both individuals and collectives. English will be the common ground for interaction.

How to Apply

We accept applications through https://form.jotform.com/252574671094362, which includes detailed instructions for the application process. Applicants will receive a confirmation email once their submission has been successfully received. Please note: Applicants must indicate their choice of one of the two modules and tailor their response accordingly. If they wish to apply for both modules, two separate applications, each appropriately written, are required.