Watou Art Festival: Call for Collectives and Collabs for Site-Specific Contribution

For the next edition of the Watou art festival, we aim for a Watou shaped by collectives and collabs, celebrating collaborative creation’s diversity and strength. The theme of this year’s open call, “The Smell of Grass is Changing”, represents the adaptation, transformation, and renewal we seek in art, inviting reflection on our changing world and its impact on our creative process and interactions. Internationally acclaimed artist Koen Vanmechelen invites artists for an in situ encampment as an immersive experiment.

Eligibility: We invite collectives or collabs (a minimum of 3 people) to participate in the next edition of Watou Arts Festival. Selected collectives or collabs will work in situ at one of the festival locations and transform that location with site-specific (indoor and/or outdoor) artistic contributions. Thus, collectives or collabs must be willing to visit the festival during the summer of 2024 (6 July – 1 September) to meet with the organisation and to develop their project afterward. Mixed teams with participants from fields other than visual arts are encouraged to apply. The Art Festival Watou is known as a festival where visual arts and poetry merge. Applicants must be at least 18 years old.

What you get: As a collective/collab you can submit projects for the next edition of the Arts Festival in two categories. Category 1: a proposal up to € 10,000. Category 2: a proposal up to € 25,000. The lump sums stated above must include fees, production, and performance costs as well as traveling expenses. These amounts are gross amounts.

Deadline 31 May 2024

Apply