Babbasawt Sound Lab 2025

This residency offers a fully funded opportunity for musicians, sound artists, and multidisciplinary artists working with sound, currently residing in Europe.

The application is due October 13th, 2024.
The residency takes place from January 6th - February 7th, 2025, in Tunis, Tunisia.

This Babbasawt Sound Lab is a one month long residency based around pairing five musicians / sound artists from a Creative Europe country with five Tunisian musicians / sound artists. The selected artists will work together on new collaborative works, while also participating in mentor led workshops on instrument building and experimental music/sound techniques.

The present open call is meant to select the five artists from any Creative Europe country / territory; a separate call will be issued at a later date to select the Tunisian artists.

The aim of the residency is to foster:

- opportunity for personal, intercultural, and professional growth

- equal access to music technologies

- experimentation in artistic collaborative formats

- inspiration through mentorship to envision a sustainable music career

Musicians are invited to consider the use of innovative musical instruments, built during residency workshop activities or provided by the residency and mentors. Selected artists will acquire new skills in sound creation and music instrument building. They will be able to test their personal strengths within an artistic collaboration, as much as imagine new types of audiences for their work. A multiplicity of perspectives is welcomed in such a collaborative environment, therefore participants can come from different artistic backgrounds, as long as they are interested in experimenting with sound in a structured and innovative manner.

What type of activities are planned?

- In person presentations from the mentors, and additional online talks from guests.

- One public concert by the mentors

- Focused learning on specific musical instruments and new technologies, practical sessions implementing their use

- Multiple day workshops focusing on musical instruments building techniques (acoustic and electronic)

- Coordinated visit to local art institutions and traditional instrument making workshops

- Improvisation sessions and rehearsals with mentors' present

The final goal is to help participants realize new collaborations, and to present this publicly as a performance, exhibition, or participatory action using a variety of musical instruments, including the ones built during the course of the residency.

ELIGIBILITY

You are eligible to apply to this open call if:

• you are over 18 years old

• you are fully available to travel to Tunis and participate in the entire period of the residency

• you are not a legal resident of Tunisia

• you are currently a legal resident of one of the Creative Europe countries (except Tunisia), or their territories:

Creative Europe Countries: Albania, Austria, Armenia, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine.

Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs): Greenland (Denmark), French Polynesia (France), New Caledonia (France), Saint Barthelemy (France), St. Pierre and Miquelon (France), Wallis and Futuna Islands (France), Aruba (The Netherlands), Bonaire (The Netherlands), Curaçao (The Netherlands), Saba (The Netherlands), Sint Maarten (The Netherlands), Sint Eustatius (The Netherlands). 

Outermost Regions (ORs): French Guiana (France), Guadeloupe (France), Martinique (France), Mayotte (France), Reunion Island (France), Saint-Martin (France), Azores (Portugal), Madeira (Portugal), Canary Islands (Spain). 

TIMELINE

Open call: September 11th - October 13th, 2024

Results: all artists will receive a response by email around October 20th, 2024

Confirmation: selected artists are required to confirm their participation by October 27th, 2024

Residency period: January 6th - February 7th, 2025

GRANT

This residency project has been selected under the conditions by Culture Moves Europe, a project funded by the European Union and implemented by the Goethe-Institut. 

Each of the five participants selected through this call will receive the following:

• accommodation free of charge at Dar Meso

• a daily allowance

• a travel stipend to be calculated by distance (an additional green top-up is available for slow travel)

• free workshops

• production support

• networking possibilities in Tunis

• public events and final work documentation

Couples, groups, or collectives: each member needs to send in an individual application, indicating if they wish to work together in their project description.

2 - ABOUT THE MENTORS

Passepartout Duo and Rami Harrabi will guide a series of workshops in the context of this residency, and will share their own work and experience in the form of collaboration, discussion, and performance.

While on a continuous journey around the world, Nicoletta Favari and Chris Salvito from Passepartout Duo (IT/US) investigate the ways in which we listen to and connect with sound. Reassessing the tools they use to create their music, the group is continually developing a specialized and evolving ecosystem of handmade musical instruments that have ranged from analog electronic circuits and conventional percussion, to room-size textile installations and found objects. Passepartout Duo was in residency at Dar Meso in November 2021.

Rami Harrabi (TN) is a composer, performer, sound-designer, an avid music lover enthralled by Arab and north-African art, instruments, traditions and rituals. His specific interests relate to alternative culture and Punk, post-punk, post-rock, Bass music, Future-garage, IDM, Ambient, Experimental, Industrial and Noise. Rami has collaborated with Dar Meso’s resident artists before and runs a workshop space for flute making.