NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN is a contemporary art festival powered by the collective thinking of WOOLOO.ORG's worldwide users.
NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN will take place from December 7th to 18th, 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The festival is part of the official cultural program for the United Nations (UN) Conference for Climate Change - gathering 192 nations in Copenhagen to broker a new global climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol.
NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN now invites artists to engage in the pressing issue of climate change and submit proposals for sustainable “life rules” that can be followed by people in their everyday lives. During the festival in December, these rules or interventions will be followed by 10.000 people living in Copenhagen.
Proposals should question cultural habits and can also include public events or other physical manifestations.
Five final artists will be selected. The selected artists will receive both personal honorariums and full production budgets.
Proposals, including budgets, should be submitted via WOOLOO.ORG by August 31st, 2009.
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY “LIFE RULES”?At the end of Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth”, he lists ten simple life rules to combat global warming. These include using less hot water, recycling more, driving less, etc. While NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN supports this sustainable thinking, we also believe that the real problem will not be solved by individual, behavioral modifications - but only by fixing the fundamental wrongs of a global economic system that thrives on the exploitation of natural resources.
Seen in this way, the climate crisis is not just a threat but also an opportunity. The opportunity to create transnational commitment around radical re-thinkings of our destructive way of life. The first step to create such change, is to think outside the current system and its concept of cultural rules. That is our mission with this festival.
By asking artists to develop rules for a new life, NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN aims to step far beyond the traditional role of the art festival as passive exhibition platform and become an active organizer of powerful experiments in collaborative social change.
THE FIRST RULE
The first life rule is developed by the festival curatorial team and is geographical specific to Copenhagen. It says: COPENHAGEN CITIZENS MUST HOST A VISITING ACTIVIST DURING THE FESTIVAL PERIOD.
In addition to the thousands of official UN delegates, it is estimated that approximately 50.000 climate activists and NGOs will come to Copenhagen to voice their opinion at the UN Conference that has been called: “Humanity's last chance to combat a climate problem that is now all but overwhelming.” (Tim Flanery)
However, there are no hotels for the activists to stay in. All the hotels in both Copenhagen and its surrounding area (including Sweden) have been booked for the official delegates. And even if they were available, most activists from the South would not be able to afford them anyway.
From this premise, the first festival rule deals both with a practical problem, as well as with the very idea of hospitality - a cultural concept that is highly relevant in a Danish society ruled for nearly 10 years by a right-wing coalition famed for its harsh anti-immigration policies.
The ambitious goal is to have 10.000 private homes in Copenhagen to host at least 10.000 visiting activists. This large scale meeting and the 10.000 homes involved is the exhibition setting for NEW LIFE COPENHAGEN.
To submit a proposal, please CLICK HERE
