Press Release: The Call to Curate and Host the European Pavilion 2024 Sparked Interest All Over the Continent

Imagining Europe and its future(s) through arts and culture

Inviting cultural organisations to submit an ambitious artistic proposal that contributes to imagining Europe and its future(s), the call to curate and host The European Pavilion 2024 sparked interest all over the continent. The European Cultural Foundation [ECF] received as many as thirty-nine proposals from organisations based in more than twenty countries.

The single commissioning grant of up to 500,000.00 € will be awarded to the most convincing proposal, which will then be implemented over the course of 2024. The selection of the winning bid, to be announced in January 2024, is entrusted to an independent jury of distinguished personalities from arts and culture. ECF expects The European Pavilion to develop into a major European cultural event not to be missed.

Sneak peek into the proposals

As The European Pavilion offers a platform for experimental, versatile and transnational work, the call was open to professionals from all fields of arts and culture. The organisations and collectives that applied are active in the fields of visual and performing arts, music, design, film, cultural heritage and arts education.

Most proposals involve international collaborations and artistic productions, and twenty of them are led by consortia that together represent over thirty countries from all over the continent and beyond, stretching from Turkey to Denmark, from Ukraine to Portugal, and from the Netherlands to Greece.

Topics touched upon in the proposals include: affirming the need to broaden European identity; drawing on its rich diversity without forgetting its shortcomings; reclaiming our future as a space of possibilities and imagining new places of conviviality and resilience; envisioning a paradigm shift that gives impetus to non-hierarchical structures and sustainable lifestyles, and the role of the arts in this.

Time line

The jury will meet on November 8 to discuss the shortlisted proposals, following an internal preselection. From then onwards, ECF will introduce the 4-5 finalists and present their proposals. In January 2024, ECF will reveal the name of the organisation that will develop and host the European Pavilion 2024.