Open Call: 'Desire Paths'

x3 large commissions; £5000 plus £3000 production budget each

x6 small commissions; £1000 plus £500 production budget each

Desire Paths (19 August 2023 – 25 November 2023) is Turf Projects’ Croydon London Borough of Culture flagship project and part of Turf’s year exploring the theme ‘DEMYSTIFICATION’. A satellite arts festival across Croydon, the project aims to explore how communities and creatives can shape the spaces and places around them, with a focus on disused and underused spaces around the borough.

An artist-led charity founded by Croydon locals in 2013, Turf was set up to provide opportunities & space for creatives locally. Operating in ex-retail spaces in Croydon with an uncertain future due to as-yet-unrealised urban development, the questions we frequently found ourselves asking about who has power over space in our hometown acted as our starting point for Desire Paths;

• How do spaces end up empty? How can we bring them back into use?
• How can people be more actively involved in these processes, why aren’t they?
• Who owns space in Croydon? What are the roles of culture, commerce & power in how space is shaped, valued and co-opted?
• How does rapid change & regeneration impact our sense of wellbeing, stability, belonging & collective memory? 
• How could Croydon forge its own path in determining how spaces and places are used?

We wanted to approach these questions with humour, playfulness and curiosity, in an attempt to demystify the processes behind them.

Desire Paths will be led by artists, organisations or collectives chosen by open call. The project will start with a symposium event at Turf and then unfold and expand across Croydon via the projects commissioned through this open call.