ACCRA [dot] ALT, REDD KAT Pictures, the Foundation for Contemporary Art Ghana (FCA), Attukwei Art Foundation and Dr. Monk proudly announce that the Seventh Annual CHALE WOTE Street Art Festival will be held August 14 – August 20, 2017.

CHALE WOTE Brief Description

The CHALE WOTE Street Art Festival is an alternative platform that brings art, music, dance and performance out into the streets. The community-based festival takes place in James Town – one of Accra’s most historic communities – and targets exchanges between scores of Ghana-based and international artists creating and appreciating art together.

Over the last six years, CHALE WOTE has completely transformed the city of Accra into the cultural production hub of West Africa. By engaging artists within the city, the festival has given Accra a facelift, revealing interconnected collectives working in multidisciplinary practices that form the pulse of CHALE WOTE.

The 2017 Festival Abstract

Wata Mata is the final installment in a CHALE WOTE trilogy that began with African Electronics, a blueprint for plugging into indigenous technologies to create the impossible and open up new spaces of social consciousness. Spirit Robot, a universal TRANSmitter of radical reconstruction, spread these electric pathways of knowledge into different directions, linking with global diasporas practicing and creating art about African liberation. More and more, we are compelled to turn to ourselves, to adapt and innovate our own systems to thrive. Wata Mata is where this work happens – in an endless space of form-making.

Wata is about the seen and unseen – it’s an all access dream machine and maker of regenerative knowledge systems. Wata Mata is a memory incubator that reanimates our bodies against coerced amnesias about who we are and what we are capable of manifesting. In 2017, we refashion the ghost limbs of history into new extensions of being.

Wata Mata is our creator’s manifesto – the key to persistently evolve and space-shift into cosmograms of freedom.

INFORMATION FOR APPLICANTS

The Call for Artists is extended to visual and installation artists, interventionists, musicians, makers, photographers, performance artists, filmmakers, thespians, poets, architects, fashion designers, graphic designers, scholars and more. We are also accepting proposals for talks, workshops, panel discussions and film screenings for The LABS @ CHALE WOTE (August 17 + 18).

As connection is central to the festival, all participating artists must be available the week of the festival, August 14 – 20 2017, to meet one another, share and exchange (in several planned activities) as well as to work on production needs for the festival.

Please note that we will accept existing and new works that are in dialogue with this year’s theme. We encourage applications particularly in digital art, comics, video art, graffiti art, and interventions.

International Artists:

This is an independent, community-based festival and our support for participation is limited. Therefore, international artists are encouraged to seek private and public sources to fund their participation (travel, lodging, food, transportation and production costs).

Ghana-based Artists:

This is an independent, community-based festival and our support for Ghana-based artists is limited. We are only able to provide a production stipend to a selected number of artists who will present works at the festival. All other artists are encouraged to seek external means of support for the production of the works at CHALE WOTE 2017.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

For the LABS @ CHALE WOTE (August 17 + 18), applicants should submit:

CVs, 1-2 page proposal of project and one (1) sample of work per person. Filmmakers and Video artists must submit completed short or feature length films/videos for review.

Applicants interested in participating on August 19 + 20 should submit an artist resume (bio, artist statement, and CV), 1-2 page proposal of project, and five (5) samples of work.

Images must be in jpg or png form.

Films or videos should be submitted via link or WeTransfer.

Audio files should be formatted and sent as MP3.

All applications should be submitted in a zip file with the applicant’s name and subject line: CHALE WOTE 2017 Application to accra.alt@gmail.com. A PDF version of this call can be downloaded here.

Note that applications that do not adhere to the above criteria will be considered ineligible.

Deadline:

May 7, 2017

Final selections will be communicated to all applicants within the month of May.

ACCRA [dot] ALT