LES ANTÍPODES

Frontier. Utopia. Peasantry. Community.

Les antípodes is a space of intersection between contemporary art, culture, and thought with the geographical and social landscape of the north-eastern catalan region of Empordà, framed within the triangle connecting the peaks Canigó and Bassegoda with Cap de Creus. The aim of Les antípodes is to establish new relationships between the city and a territory dotted with vineyards and olive groves, marked by the tramontane wind and the border, contributing to mutual recognition, sustainable economic activity, and free, open, and decentralized cultural creation, articulated from diverse perspectives that enable a new and enriching symbiosis.

 

The rural world has much to say about nowadays’ social and environmental challenges. Les antípodes proposes a meeting space to explore new forms of relationship with the metropolis, based on respect and curiosity, beyond mercantilism and far from preconceived ideas, structured around four axes: frontier, utopia, agriculture, and community.

 

Frontier, the space of transit and process of transition where tensions manifest at the threshold of transformation and intermediate places where new perceptions, languages, and identities emerge. Utopia, the aspiration for a free, just, and sustainable world, intercultural and multi-species, symbiotic and decentralized. Agriculture, the productive link between nature and society, the work that gives substance, produces food, and cares for the land and its inhabitants. Community, the memory and meaning that make it possible to understand one’s own world and articulate it with other realities, both present, past, and future.

PROGRAMME

Live arts and community

Les Antípodes connects contemporary arts and culture with the rural communities of Empordà, based on mutual recognition beyond mercantilism and preconceived ideas, exploring new relationships between the metropolis and an ecosystem that extends from Les Salines to Cap de Creus.

NUMÈRIC

Research and creation grant.

Open call from July 29 to August 29, 2025

 

Numèric 2025 PDF —> ENGLISH / CATALAN / SPANISH / FRENCH

 

Numèric fosters critical thinking and artistic experimentation through scholarships for research and creation residencies that articulate any discipline of the arts and thought with digital media, processes and formats aimed at exploring new systems and forms of relationship, experience and expression.

 

FRAMEWORK

 

This year, the focus of Numèric is the game: a free, voluntary activity separated from ordinary life, governed by specific rules, unproductive in material terms and with uncertain outcomes, in which the skill and luck of participants compete.

 

We find ludic elements in poetry, riddles and wordplay, which reveal the creative and aesthetic capacity of language beyond its function; in rituals and festive ceremonies, which maintain ludic structures with sacred spaces and specific rules separated from daily life; in the formal procedures and rules of law and justice, the competition between parties and the theatrical element of courts; even codes of honor and rituals of primitive warfare have ludic characteristics.

 

Art and philosophy also contain clear examples of this ludic heritage, such as speculative gratuitousness, self-imposed internal rules, the tension between competition and cooperation or the construction of concepts and metaphors separated from the practical world that also characterize authentic play.

 

The interest of Numèric focuses on the game as an end in itself, with rules that enhance freedom, creativity and fun in spaces of joy that foster both collaboration and competitiveness, community and social bonds, outside daily impositions, with no reward other than the intrinsic pleasure of playing and where victory does not eclipse shared enjoyment.

 

Homo ludens, Johan Huizinga, 1938, has served as a reference to define this year’s conceptual framework.

 

RESIDENCE

 

Numèric proposes an environment conducive to relationships and exchange in spaces suitable for the different needs of the projects. The residencies will be developed over four weeks and will conclude with an informal presentation of the work carried out.

 

The stays will be preceded by a month of preparation and a follow-up of two months will be carried out. During the stays and the preparation and follow-up periods, the Numèric team will support the participants and, in case they want to connect with agents of the local ecosystem, will seek to generate opportunities for meeting and exchange and will organize any activities that may arise during the residencies, making the appropriate contacts or dissemination. The result of the residencies may be incorporated into the publications or public activities program of Les antípodes, on other dates and with the pertinent assignment according to the case.

 

Les antípodes are in Agullana, a town of nine hundred inhabitants in Alt Empordà, at the center of the triangle that connects Canigó with Bassegoda and Cap de Creus. The town is connected to Figueres (20 km) by a bus that passes four times a day and well connected by road and highway with the Tren de Gran Velocitat station of Vilafant (20), Perpinyà (40), Cadaqués (50), Girona (60), Barcelona (160) and Montpeller (190).

 

FIELDS

 

Proposals can be transdisciplinary or from any discipline of contemporary arts and thought, articulated with digital media, processes and formats.

 

CALENDAR

 

Proposals – Applications can be submitted between July 29 and August 29, 2025.

 

Verdict – Selected proposals will be announced on September 16, 2025.

 

Preparation – October 2025.

 

Residencies – From November 3 to 30, 2025.

 

Follow-up – December 2025 to February 2026.

 

Any public presentations or publications of works resulting from the residencies will be during 2026, integrated into Les antípodes’ activities program.

 

ENDOWMENT

 

The 2025 scholarship will provide the needs stipulated in the applications of the selected projects and for travel, accommodation and maintenance of the participants.

 

In addition, each project will receive 1,200 euros gross amount as a stipend at the beginning of the stay.

 

JURY

 

Tere Badia — Researcher and curator. She is dedicated to cultural research, management and production, especially at the intersection between technology, networks and contemporary art. She has been linked to Fundació Interarts (Barcelona), to the multimedia communication agency Goetzinger + Komplizen (Karlsruhe), coordinated the Disonancias program in Catalunya, was director of Hangar, center for artistic production and research and has coordinated projects related to R&D&I in visual arts in Catalunya, and carried out the Pla Integral d’R+D+i per a les Arts Visuals a Catalunya commissioned by AAVC. She is director of Hacte Barcelona – Hub d’Art, Ciència i Tecnologia.

 

Anna Carreras — Generative artist and creative coder. She uses generative algorithms and computer code to create artistic proposals that address everyday experiences or evoke memories, while also raising questions about complex Universe concepts. All of this is visually generated and handcrafted in algorithms that draw from scratch, without memory, intelligence, or learning.

 

cube space and lighting — Maria de la Cámara and Gabriel Paré develop dynamic spaces through light. Their work is distinguished by ongoing transgressive research that places them at the boundaries of paratheatricality. The perceptual fusion between space and light is the essence of their installations.

 

Oriol Fontdevila — Curator, professor and researcher. He was the curator of Catalunya’s participation in the 59th edition of the Biennal de Venècia d’Arts Visuals 2022, co-director of the Sala d’Art Jove de la Generalitat de Catalunya, between 2006 and 2020 and co-directs the Màster d’Exposicions. Curadoria i Disseny at Escola EINA. He has curated exhibitions and programs at spaces such as Hauser & Wirth Menorca; Fundació Joan Miró; Fundació Antoni Tàpies; Centre d’Art La Panera or Tecla Sala. He is author of the essay El arte de la mediación, Consonni (2018). He is director of Bòlit, Centre d’Art Contemporani Girona.

 

Roc Parés — Interactive communication artist and researcher. He has developed his career as a narrative that alternates between experimentation, production, dissemination, reception, teaching, and research. His work is characterized by poetic and critical experimentation with new technologies.

 

Gerard Valls Montaño — Designer and audiovisual artist who experiments with hybrid experiences at the intersection of the digital and physical worlds. Using science and technology as a basis, he explores the blurred boundaries between these two universes through visuals, materials, light, and sound, creating evolving atmospheres that transform with visitor interactions and the passage of time.

 

Irma Vilà Òdena — Curator, researcher, and cultural producer specializing in digital art and the intersections between art, science, and technology. Rooted in science and engineering but also closely connected to creative practice and cultural research. She undertakes and integrates international hybrid projects in science, culture, and curating shown at various festivals and museums worldwide, exemplifying the intertwining of art and science.

 

Oriol Caba will act as secretary and coordinator, with a voice but without a vote. He is a curator and producer at the intersection of art, culture, and insurgencies, coordinator of Les antípodes.

 

REQUIREMENTS

 

Proposals must be genuine, original and not copied.

 

Applicants can be individuals or collectives. In the case of collectives, the stipend will be distributed among the members.

 

Regardless of the language in which the proposal is to be developed, the application must be submitted in Catalan or English.

 

The application must be submitted through the form, which may include an attached PDF of five pages and 10 Mb.

 

Only one application can be submitted.

 

WILL BE FABORABLY EVALUATED

 

Singularity and innovation – Approaches and practices that move away from known formulas, present a particular vision and explore ideas, media, processes and formats that challenge established conventions and take us beyond.

 

Transfer – Proposals that contemplate the transfer of the residency work in some other format, whether editorial, face-to-face, performative, sound, audiovisual, etc.

 

Interaction – Proposals that contemplate relationships with the geographical, social and natural environments of Alt Empordà or the Mediterranean.

 

 

FORM

Form.

 

CONTACT

 

You can contact us by email at numeric@lesantipodes.com or by phone at +34 633 81 52 85.

 

 

Open call from July 29 to August 29, 2025

 

Numèric 2025 PDF —> ENGLISH / CATALAN / SPANISH / FRENCH

RESIDENCY

Open space.

Les antípodes is also a space for research and creation open to experimentation across all disciplines of art, thought, and social sciences in every format —oral, textual, mathematical, computational, sonic, visual, plastic, performative, relational, immersive, virtual, etc.— whether ephemeral or enduring.

GAMATZEM

Les antipodes' magazine.

The archive and memories of Les antípodes.

STORE

Edicions LA and more.

Now for sale: Belvedere, Miquel Duran, 2024. Single ink print. Iron: 420 x 420 mm. Paper: Hahnemühle 300 g – 500 x 650 mm. 4 beards. Print run: 50 copies + 5 tests of condition. Print: Miquel Duran, 2024. Includes certificate of authenticity.

FRONTERA. UTOPIA. PAGESIA. COMUNITAT.

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