The Nicosia Open Up Festival – A festival open to all was a multi-dimensional arts festival that features
an art exhibition, performances, an open discussion, lectures–performances, video-installations,
multifaceted art activities, music, screenings, a street party, culinary events and workshops. The fourday
events of the festival begin on Thursday, 19 October 2023, with the opening of the Open Up
exhibition at NiMAC [The Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre, Associated with the Pierides Foundation]
and conclude on Sunday, 22 October 2023, with a large street party.
The festival presented works by artists who participated in workshops, seminars and various other
activities organised and implemented by all partner-institutions participating in the OPEN UP project
during the four-year programme (2019–2023). The aim of the programme and of the festival itself was to
promote talented artists from Cyprus, Finland, Sweden, Portugal, Greece, Spain and France who for
various reasons –political, geographical, social and economic– were not able to present their work at
local or European level. The Nicosia Open Up Festival was the last and major event of the European
project and reflects the programme’s vision: Faith in the value of human creativity.
Initiated by PUBLICS the Festival of Books and Voices spreads out through September, October, and November 2023, bringing together themes of Publishing and Voice. For this Autumn, our space in Vallila is showcasing an exhibition of 100 books published by Lugemik, an independent publishing initiative based in Tallinn. In celebration of the show, we will have a monthly program consisting of book launches, vinyl sound lounge, lectures, screenings, pop-up bookstores, discussions and readings!Connecting with local publishers, artists associations and artists that have been involved with OPEN UP over the last 4 years the festival continues the tradition of bringing attention to books and emphasising the context of our Library – a crucial and ever growing part of PUBLICS identity. The Festival of Books and Voices included: Lugemik, Indrek Sirkel, Marge Monko, Flo Kasearu, Dear Friend, Page Not Found, OH Radio, Arja Karhumaa, Multipöly / Ikkunajulkaisu Eurantiellä, Tuukka Kaila, Rooftop Press, Aura Saarikoski, Khaos Publishing, Sasha Huber & Petri Saarikko, PUBLICS YOUTH, Julia Fidder and Becky Beasley, Kaino Kim Vieno amongst other guests invited by PUBLICS. Events within this festival are part of OPEN UP, a project that has been co-funded by the European Commission under the Creative Europe Programme.
Université de Picardie Jules Verne – Amiens, France
The OPEN UP project, conceived in partnership with Méru’s municipal facilities (Centre culturel le Domino, ESCAB, Médiathèque, Musée de la Nacre et de la tabletterie) and with the support of Emmaus, is a four-part residency with workshops and conferences on the use of ornaments, buttons and insignia on clothing as cultural, political, family, professional or spiritual markers.
spiritual markers.
After three visits to Méru in the spring, numerous workshops, hikes, meetings, meals and exchanges, and a participatory banquet, the exhibition Pieds Poignards et Poignets Rubans (Dagger Feet and Ribbon Wrists) reflects the work carried out with local residents around objects that carry memory, reactivating in particular the imaginations of sabotage actions and strike canteens during the 1909 Troubles, and those of London costermongers.
To conclude this residency, during which the workshops took place, the Festival Open UP Amiens à Méru is presenting an account of all the exchanges in the form of an exhibition in the Centre Culturel le Domino, featuring the plastic creations imagined during the residency, historical documents and archives, and one of the mother-of-pearl tablecloths created by the méruvien-nes. To mark the occasion, meetings were organized around dialogues with a researcher and historian, an exhibition curator, a tour of the Musée de la Nacre’s collections and a workshop to understand how history is alive and well, and also echoes what we go through on a daily.
Saturday, October 14 : Exhibition: Dagger feet and ribbon wrists Opening
Wednesday, October 25: Talking plates” workshop at Centre Culturel le Domino from 2:00 pm to
à 16h30 (open to families and children aged 7 and over), 2 rue Mimaut
Thursday, October 26: Conference with Anne Steiner, sociologist and historian of anarchy
about her book Le gout de l’émeute. Manifestations and street violence in Paris and its suburbs during the “belle époque”, and Florian Lejeune.
Friday November 10 : tour of the Musée de la Nacre et de la Tabletterie collections
with Céline Marti, heritage conservation assistant.
The Open Up Uth Festival organised an exhibition with the results of the program’s workshops on the 29th of May until the 1st of June 2023. In the context of a current reflection on everyday practices and their environmental footprint, the exhibition poses the basic question of the design of produced objects in relation to their function and materiality and examines reuse as a methodological and design tool for the production of everyday objects. The festival hosted a discussion about Permaculture the garden of the Campus with guest Matthias Fritsch and the team @futwelefthera
The Local OpenUp Festival inauguration, in New Hand Lab took place on the 12th of May 2023. The festival was an exhibition with the artist presenting their work to the audience. At the end of the festival a part was held at New Hand Lab for the Local OpenUp Festival
