AEGEAN FUTURES – 2027 Art Residency in Greece

Open Call: Aegean Futures Program: Cities by the sea / Re-imagine the Mediterranean Organizer: Nekubi Art Residency Curator: Nikos Sotirelis Location: Kavala, Greece Time: 2027 Duration: 3 weeks programs Nekubi Art Residency is a booming artist led community and art space located in the heart of the beautiful coastal city of Kavala in Northern Greece providing easy access to urban inspiration, nearby beaches, local galleries and cultural networks.

Our space emphasizes contemporary art and a slow living lifestyle. It provides a platform for artistic exploration that challenges traditional boundaries. The residency facilitates exhibitions and international artists are invited to participate through our annual open calls and become part of the experience. 2027 OPEN CALL – AEGEAN FUTURES invites artists, performers, researchers, writers, architects, designers and interdisciplinary practitioners to imagine the Aegean as an evolving territory where ancient ecologies, ancestral knowledge, emerging technologies and speculative futures coexist.

This year’s theme asks how the deep histories of the Aegean Sea can become tools for imagining new ways of living in an era defined by environmental uncertainty, planetary change and shifting cultural identities. We welcome artists, thinkers, researchers and hybrid practitioners to engage with the Aegean Sea as a mythscape in motion, a fluid archive of memory, a post-geographic portal where ancient narratives echo into emerging futures.

This year’s residency is self-guided and unsupervised, with no formal curation, offering you space to work at your own pace and the freedom to shape your time on your own terms. There is no schedule but the one you bring, no program but the one you summon. Think of it as a retreat, an invitation to immerse yourself in your practice while moving through the rhythms, textures and atmospheres of a Mediterranean vacation.

We seek to host critical and experimental projects across visual arts, media arts, performance, painting, sound, writing, architecture, design, photography, film, collage, new media and hybrid practices in the fields of: • Oceanic thinking and maritime imaginaries • Indigenous Aegean histories and the cultural legacies associated with the Greek world. • Mythology as a living system rather than a historical artifact.

• Marine ecologies, island ecosystems and multispecies relationships. • Climate futures, environmental adaptation and regenerative practices. • Sacred landscapes, archaeological memory and geological time. • Migration, navigation and the Aegean as a corridor of exchange. • Post-human, speculative and science-fiction imaginaries rooted in Mediterranean realities. • Folk traditions, ritual, oral histories and forgotten cosmologies.

• The relationship between technology, ecology and ancient knowledge systems. • New cartographies, blue futures and alternative visions of island and coastal life. Participants will have time and space to develop on their own new work in dialogue with Kavala’s topography, local communities and the shifting cultural landscapes of the wider Mediterranean. Set in the coastal city of Kavala, where the continental edge meets the restless waters of the Pelago, the residency offers a site where the land of Greece folds into its own sea-born imagination.

*** The theme serves as an open foundation for inspiration, offering artists a starting point to explore, reinterpret and expand upon. It is not restrictive but rather a flexible guide encouraging diverse artistic approaches and perspectives. The program invites participants of all disciplines to create meaningful connections, immerse themselves in the rich cultural environment and enjoy a rewarding and memorable stay.

The program aims to have participants feel inspired, welcomed and integrated into an experience that seamlessly blends art, culture and the captivating allure of this Mediterranean gem.