On 9 February 2022, an online audience from around the world celebrates the launch of the second edition of City to City. The five artworks have been produced by 13 artists working collaboratively across borders and time zones, on the theme of Play!
The dreadful pandemic through which the world has lived has shown us what creativity and culture mean to us, and what it means to lose these vital ways of relating to one another. We have all missed the playfulness of everyday human interaction. The Media Arts Cities asked artists to imagine a fairer, more sustainable future, to consider how we can use our technologies to help us learn to play again. In short, what will happen when we press Play?
The 13 UNESCO Creative Cities of Media Arts participating in the project are Austin (United States), Braga (Portugal), Cali (Colombia), Changsha (China), Enghien-les-Bains (France), Guadalajara (Mexico), Gwangju (Korea), Karlsruhe (Germany), Kosice (Slovakia), Sapporo (Japan), Toronto (Canada), Viborg (Denmark) and York (United Kingdom).
Each participating city organized an open call for submissions followed by a selection of an artist or creative team to represent them. The artists then participated in a series of four City to City Labs, the purpose of which was to enable the formation of collaborative teams, from which emerged original and distinctive projects that respond to the theme. An intense production period of three months followed, in which the five projects were realized.
The artist selected to represent the city of Košice was Ivana Durkáčová. She worked with Luciano Rodriguez Arredondo, the artist selected by the city from Guadalajara, Mexico.
The guests at the City to City launch on 9 February will be welcomed by the Secretary of the Mayor of Cali, Mrs Liliana Sierra Chavez, and will hear addresses by the UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture, Mr Ernesto Ottone, and the Coordinator of Media Arts Cities, M. Dominique Roland. This is followed by an interview with artist, curator and Executive Director of the International Symposium for Electronic Art, Sue Gollifer, presentations by members of the creative teams, and of the artworks themselves.
The livestream of the launch will be available on Facebook. After the event the recording will be available at the website of the Media Arts Cities where you can also experience the artworks online.
The online exhibition of the first (2020) edition of City to City: Human Responsibility, can be viewed here.
UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN)
The UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) was created in 2004 to promote cooperation with and among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. The cities which make up this network work together towards a common goal: placing creativity and cultural industries at the heart of their development plans at the local level and cooperating actively at the international level.
Participating cities
- Austin (USA)
- Braga (Portugal)
- Cali (Colombia)
- Changsha (China)
- Enghien-les-Bains (France)
- Guadalajara (Mexico)
- Gwangju (Korea)
- Karlsruhe (Germany)
- Kosice (Slovakia)
- Sapporo (Japan)
- Toronto (Canada)
- Viborg (Denmark)
- York (UK)
List of Artworks and Artists
- PlaceHolder – Ivana Durkáčová (Košice), Luciano Rodriguez Arredondo (Guadalajara)
- BLUR – Jorge Ramos (Braga), Julien Gaillac (Enghien-les-Bains), Anna Kim (Gwangju)
- The Portal – Yilin Wang (Changsha), Mauricio Díaz (Cali), Miyki Oka (Sapporo)
- told-hold – Taeheon Lee (York), Meiyan Chen (Karlsruhe), ARCOS (Austin)
- Highwave – Manuel Alejandro Jiménez Reyes (Toronto)
Biography of the artist representing Košice
Ivana Durkáčová
A Photography and New Media graduate at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia, and a Ph.D. candidate at the Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design, Wroclaw, Poland. Her work is characterized by multi-disciplinary practice, appropriation, and frequent work with moving image.
The program was supported using public funding by the Slovak Arts Council.