Open Call 2027 is open! We invite artists and researchers to take part in Making Futures, a programme of long-term artistic research projects. No deadline — apply by email.

Making Futures

A Long-Term Artistic Research Programme of the Emigration into the Future Festival 2027

About the Programme

In 2026, the Emigration into the Future festival took place in Berlin, bringing together more than 30 participants from 7 countries.

Building on this experience, in 2027 we are launching Making Futures — a programme for long-term artistic research projects aimed at developing an international community capable of exploring and creating possible futures together.

We are looking for artists and researchers who feel that creating a work about the future is not enough. We are interested in those who want to explore possible forms of the future by acting in the present.

We are developing a programme of projects that unfold over several months or a year and have no single physical location. Their territory is the network of participants spread across different cities and countries.

We do not require participants to define the outcome of their research in advance. It may become a performance, a scientific experiment, a community, a new institution, a technology, a social practice — or something for which there is no name yet.

What Kinds of Projects Are We Looking For?

We are interested in projects that:

• Research rather than illustrate. They begin with a genuine question to which the author does not yet know the answer.

• Have an open-ended outcome. The result of the research is not predetermined.

• Engage with reality. They move beyond the artwork itself and work with people, environments, technologies, institutions or nature.

• Produce something. They generate new relationships, practices, communities, tools, situations or changes in the environment.

• Require time. They involve a sustained process rather than simply preparing for a final presentation.

• Make participation possible. They allow other people to become involved in the research and influence its development.

• Are open to collaboration. They can interact with other projects in the programme and draw on the opportunities that emerge from these encounters.

• Explore possible futures. They approach the future not only as a subject, but as a field of possibilities that can be tested in practice.

• Explore communication between human and non-human subjects. We are interested in possible forms of communication and collaboration with animals, plants, ecosystems, artificial intelligence, technical systems and other forms of existence.

We are particularly interested in projects in which art becomes a way of doing something to reality, rather than merely saying something about it.

We do not restrict participants to particular artistic genres, disciplines or themes. We welcome projects emerging at the intersection of different fields of knowledge and practice.

The Programme as a Community

We believe that one of the main challenges faced by artist-researchers is the lack of a social environment for forms of work whose purpose and outcome are not yet obvious and which often exist between established disciplines.

The participants of Making Futures are therefore not only authors of their own projects, but also potential collaborators in one another's research.

Each participant will have the opportunity to invite others to join their project. In turn, every participant is expected to become a collaborator in at least one other project.

We aim to create a distributed, project-producing community — a network of people who help one another make things possible that would be difficult to accomplish alone.

We are interested not only in exchanging experience, but also in producing things together: new projects, practices, relationships and ways of acting that would not emerge without interaction between participants.

What Do We Offer?

The festival is not only a place for final presentations. It is intended to become an environment for sustained work.

We aim to offer participants:

• organisational and production support;

• assistance in finding contacts, partners and necessary resources;

• opportunities to involve other programme participants in their research;

• opportunities for public intermediate experiments;

• participation in an international network of artists and researchers;

• the opportunity to present the results of their research at the 2027 Emigration into the Future festival.

The format and location of each presentation will depend on the nature of the project. The final outcome does not have to be predetermined or take the form of a conventional artwork.

What Do We Hope to See?

We are looking not so much for ready-made answers as for processes in which new questions, new ways of acting and new forms of interaction emerge.

The outcome may be an artwork, a research project, a community, a tool, a new practice or a change in reality. Unexpected discoveries, the revision of initial hypotheses and new possibilities emerging through the process are equally valuable.

We are not interested in predicting the future. We are interested in trying to make it.

How to Apply

The call is open permanently. There is no deadline.

Write to vsevollys@gmail.com and send:

• a description of your project;

• what you expect from collaboration;

• a few words about yourself: your name and what you do. A full CV is not needed.

Apply by email →

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