Short Description:
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—an 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.
The Summer 2025 modules are curated by UNIDEE Visiting Curator with invited mentors: visual artist who writes Verónica Gerber Bicecci with singer, composer and vocal researcher Meike Clarelli, and researcher, sound artist, and educator Pedro Oliveira with performer, composer and musician Ece Canlı.
To learn more about the project’s context and objectives, please refer to the complete curatorial framework here.
ABOUT THE RESIDENCY MODULES
Module I – Summer 2025, The thing with commas, periods, dashes and parentheses will take place from 9 to 13 June, and it is led by mentor Verónica Gerber Bicecci and guest Meike Clarelli.
The module will focus on the supposed silence of punctuation. If we could listen to commas, periods, dashes or parentheses; if we could talk to semicolons, colons, hyphens, question marks and exclamation points, what would they tell us? How would they translate the world from their own place? How does punctuation think about writing? Researcher Jennifer DeVere Brody says that punctuation was first considered a “servant”, then a chaperone, and finally an assistant to texts–always a female worker with a minor place in the shaping of meaning. Through teamwork exercises on observation, listening, walking and other activities, the workshop aims to embody possible answers to all these questions. Attendees will create performance pieces as well as scores, exploring their own relationship with punctuation marks.
More info on Module I here.
Module II – Summer 2025, Unknowing Listening / Transfluent Aurality will take place from 16 to 20 June, and it is led by mentor Pedro Oliveira and guest Ece Canlı.
The workshop explores listening and aural practices at the limits of what knowledge is and can be. In a continuous process of doing and undoing—what we know, what we think we know, and what we might not know—participants will engage in a transdisciplinary exercise of thinking with and through listening as a mode of redefining what it means to “know” something, to “understand” the world, and to act in the world. The main goal is to rehearse modes and practices that engage with other-than-human worlds in non-extractive and non-utilitarian ways—practices that give as much as they take, and that engage without the precondition of making things transparent and legible. It brushes against the idea that the world is something external to ourselves, and thus can be properly organized in a system of understanding that is fixed, nameable, classifiable; capable of having its resources extracted, packaged, and commodified. The failed promises of utilitarianism and extractivism will be discussed, inviting participants to engage with the radical exercise of imagining other possible worlds through poetic, artistic, activist, and scholarly work.
More info on Module II here.
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.
HOW TO APPLY
We accept applications through https://form.jotform.com/250914120193347, 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.
Eligibility:
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.
Program Benefits or Awards:
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.
Entry Fee:
none
participation fee:
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.
Location: Biella, Italy
Deadline: 27 April 2025
Website link: https://unidee.cittadellarte.it/activity.html?id=235
