ecopoetics workshop 2024: Colombia
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The organizing group of the Topological Poetics Research Institute (TPRI) call for applications to ecopoetics workshop 2024, which will take place at Café Tío Conejo, a working coffee farm in Manizales, Colombia, from August 5-19, 2024. 

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To apply, please fill out the application form here: https://forms.gle/JkgDSfvtYRDYTNwA6

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Deadline: 24 March 2024

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Or read-on below to learn more...

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THEME: Labor, Coffee, and Ecology

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Our Summer 2024 workshop will take place on a working coffee farm in Manizales, Colombia: Café Tío Conejo: https://www.tioconejo.coffee/

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We will concentrate on the theme of “labor,” especially as it relates to coffee and ecology.

 

While coffee need not be the subject of your own work, it is nevertheless a dazzling lens on life today, from contemporary geopolitics to colonial history, from questions of labor, value, capital, and economics, to culture, cosmology, and society.

 

Indeed, coffee is intimately tied to the development of democracy, colonialism and globalization, and fueled more than one revolutionary political movement, such as in France and Haiti. The workshop will provide ample time for you to pursue work of your own choosing, in addition to offering activity, collective thinking, and collaboration around questions of labor, coffee, and ecology.

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SCHEDULE

 

The workshop schedule involves alternating days of structured and open time.

 

Generally speaking, on structured days, the group meets in the morning to discuss the day’s theme and a selection of texts (e.g. theories of labor and value in relation to aesthetic practice). In the afternoon, we will embark on a creative exercise in the environment surrounding Café Tío Conejo's farm (e.g. a collaborative exercise oriented around picking coffee and cultural production).

 

On open days, participants can work on their personal projects or meet in groups as they please. We will also occasionally be joined on Zoom, and in person, by scholars from the field for readings, lectures, and presentations.

 

There is ample space and accommodation to comfortably work on the farm in a more writerly/scholarly mode and/or in a more materials/media arts mode. And there are plenty of interesting ecological sites to explore.

 

At the halfway point of the workshop, there will be a ‘work-in-progress’ event providing the opportunity for feedback, and at the end of the workshop there will be a public 'project presentation' event. Participants will be encouraged to complete an object, text, or other outcome by the end of the workshop.

 

There are also opportunities to visit ecoparks in the area, hot springs, other farms, and more, depending on the will of the group. While we will have a good amount of highly scheduled time, it is also important to us to keep some time open for spontaneity and exploration as the workshop progresses. In addition, Manizales, Colombia is home to several universities, and there may be potential for community/scholarly collaboration as well.

 

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TO APPLY

 

Please fill out our application form here: https://forms.gle/xbpWeLbkUYVEX7vx6

 

APPLICATION DEADLINE: Friday March 24, 2024 at 18:00 US Eastern Time

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The form will ask for the below items, which you might like to prepare in advance: 

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1. A personal biography detailing relevant past artistic, academic, and/or professional experience. (300 words max).
    

2. A “statement of intent” (in lieu of a “project proposal”) detailing what concepts, modes, materials, or discourses you are looking to engage with during the workshop. You may like to discuss ongoing projects here, but we are particularly interested in how they will be developed at this specific site, during this specific workshop. You should also include some thoughts on how you might engage with the environmental theme of “air” in your work. (1000 words max).
    

3. Links to any online portfolios or other evidence of relevant previous work published or exhibited.

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GUIDELINE FOR APPLICANTS

 

A maximum of 10 participants will be invited to join the organizing group of Brooke Bastie, Brent Cox, and Simon Eales. Preference will go to applicants whose statement of intent is most closely engaged with the aesthetic, theoretical, and practical concerns of ecopoetics workshop and the Topological Poetics Research Institute.

 

A shorthand gauge for measuring such a closeness is: creativity (is the intended work innovative?), criticality (is the intended work rigorous and relevant?), and collaborative (would the intended work both contribute to and benefit from being developed in a group context?).

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COST

 

Two weeks accommodation at Café Tío Conejo, three meals daily, all reading materials, and facilitation fees: $1200 USD to be paid prior to commencement of the workshop. 

 

Travel and other food costs are the responsibility of each individual participant.

 

If your application is successful, we will ask that a non-refundable deposit of $350 be paid to secure your place. The remainder of the fee must be paid by the 1st of June 2024. 

 

If participants are affiliated with an institution of some kind, we strongly encourage them to seek out funding from that institution. Our past participants have had great success with this and we are here to provide any documentation or support you might need in obtaining such funding. 

 

We will continue working to secure funding between now and the workshop. What we raise will be used to offset the costs of the workshop for participants.  

 

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DEADLINE

 

We ask that all applications are submitted via the application form linked above (and repeated here: https://forms.gle/xbpWeLbkUYVEX7vx6) by 24 March 2024 at 18:00 US Eastern Time.

 

CONTACT

ecopoeticsworkshop@gmail.com

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