Play Pause: Re-Vision Performing Arts Festival

Now in its fourth year, Re-Vision Festival aims to promote social inclusion, diversity and equality through diverse performing arts. This festival emerges from societal concerns involving LGBTQIA+ issues in Northern Ireland. We aim to create various platforms inside and outside of artistic environments for artists who embrace performative qualities within their work. We wish to interrogate inequality, fight for empowerment and address issues relating to identity and social inclusion. Through supporting emerging and local talent in NI, our goal is to create an open space for experimentation that inspires engagement and action.

Digital Arts Studios is delighted to be working in partnership with Re-Vision and we look forward to strengthening and developing support for local artists. We are very grateful to Belfast City Council for supporting the festival through their Artist Studios and Maker Spaces Organisational Grants 2022/23.

Chloe Austin, Re-Vision Co-Founder and Creative Director said:

The work we do at Re-Vision is solely for the communities involved, the arts and queer community. We invite artists and creatives to rethink the future while digging into the past, encouraging individuals to reframe and reshape our present surroundings. Re-Vision acts to correct, rework and revise what we have been told is unspeakable.

We aim to create a safe and open space for issues of social inclusion, diversity and equality to be in the spotlight. It is about giving voices to others or making other voices heard. It’s about different backgrounds, upbringings and cultures. Re-Vision is about the process as much as the end result and we strive for a future that embraces each-others’ individuality and promotes the importance of social inclusion.

The festival will operate over three days in Belfast and include five events, showcasing various art forms from performance artists to DJ’s. Our events will include ‘Speak It Now Eat It’ (Opening event; Video Art and Spoken Word/Performance), ‘Seeing You Seeing Me’ (Performance Art) and ‘Between The Bias’ (Talent Show). Following ‘Between The Bias’, we are excited to be showcasing two emerging queer DJ’s from Belfast, making their debut with Re-Vision. We will also be holding a workshop at DAS to engage with the craft community in NI. Each event will offer an option to donate to our chosen charity, The Rainbow Project NI.

This year's festival Play/Pause, aims to address how identities are negotiated through performativity and technology. The process of digitalisation in contemporary society is inevitable. This digitalisation we are dealing with not only refers to new technologies but also to specific ways of communication between ourselves and others. It changes the paths we take in everyday life, from culture to politics. New technologies continue to break new grounds and reveal our ever-changing perceptions.

CALL FOR ENTRIES

For our 2022 programme, we invite submissions from artists and creatives who wish to explore and experiment with their multitudes in our digital age. Proposals on the following topics are encouraged but please note this list is not exhaustive:

- performativity and authenticity;

- relationships between performativity and technology;

- human existence, visibility and identity in the age of technological change;

- functions and values of performance;

- the artist’s body as primary subject of representation;

- change of perception due to technological developments;

- curating as living/aesthetic experience.

Please submit a proposal that includes a short biography, work/proposed work along with 100 words (max) on why you believe your work fits into the ethos of this year's theme. Please email proposals to revisionfestivalbelfast@outlook.com by 23.59 Monday 17th October 2022.

We are calling for artists for two different events:

Speak It Now Eat It will take place on the 25^th November at Accidental Theatre. This is our opening event of Re-Vision Festival 2022. This event showcases emerging spoken word, video and film artists. Please note that this will be a live stream event and only accessible online. We especially encourage work that is collaborative and performative.

Seeing You Seeing Me will take place on the 26^th November in Golden Thread Gallery. This event is dedicated to performance art rooted in experimentation. Whether you are an experienced performance artist or this is your first time performing, we want to hear from you!

Re-Vision Talent Show, Between The Bias, is the closing event which will take place in Ulster Sports Club on Sunday 27^th of November. The Open Call for this will be done via Instagram @revisionfestivalbelfast and will be released in the coming weeks.

Copyright of artwork will always remain with the artist. An introduction to the selected artists will be posted on the Re-Vision Instagram and Facebook page @revisionfestivalbelfast. Images/work will not be used for any other purpose and the artist will always be credited via social media.