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Open Call

Open Call

As in previous years, Unsound welcomes submissions from artists, musicians, writers, activists, academics, and other cultural practitioners through an open call. Due to a number requests, we have extended the deadline to May 31st. Note also that this year’s Unsound will take place largely - if not completely - online. 


The theme for Unsound 2020 is Intermission. Meaning a break in a performance or production, here it also refers to the rupture caused by COVID-19, a period starkly separating before from after. The word therefore embodies multiple, and somehow contradictory, forces. Unsound 2020: Intermission— our 18th edition — will be a festival where the sound of music largely gives way to the sound of speaking and listening. 


Some of the subjects we would like to explore include music in conditions of lockdown, pandemic and post-pandemic soundscapes, technologies of emergency, new protocols of intimacy and care, protest and activism, the environment, and new forms of power. 


We welcome submissions for performative lectures, panel discussions, workshops and reading groups to be held via streaming platforms, online performances, and everything that blurs the lines between those formats. Proposals that playfully address the experience of online transmission are of particular interest for us - we encourage you to think in unexpected ways. 


Submissions in English or in Polish (up to 4000 characters) should include any relevant links to online material, as well as a bio. Please send the proposals by 31th May to [email protected]. We will follow up with selected projects after the deadline, as well as notify anyone whose submission was not successful. All selected projects will be paid for, depending on the scale, level of development, type of submission etc, to be discussed with participants individually.