Nocturnalities: Bargaining Beyond Rest is an artistic research project that aims to contextualize rest, exhaustion, anxiety and precarity in cultural labour, knowledge production and intimate strategies of care in the art world through publication, online REST Archive and public programme. It looks at sleep, and consequently rest through the performative forms of work –highlighting their communal impact and temporal boundaries. What can we learn from the capitalist co-option of sleep and its biopolitical strategies? How does lack of rest contribute to our mythologisation of certainty? And can art institutions take a sabbatical from their cultural production?

Open call

WHAT EXACTLY IS THIS ABOUT?
The project aims to give a space for articulation of the varieties of rest and care strategies. We are in the process of creating the REST Archive: a submission-based archive, that serves as a virtual space, almost like a virtual body—an archive never at sleep—where viewers can explore different types of content related to the topic of rest.

WHAT WE WOULD LIKE RECEIVE FROM YOU?
We are looking for submission of already existing sources relating to rest, sleep or care, in particular reflecting its political, social, artistic, academic and labour aspects. Submissions could be textual, auditory or visual translations of the topic that can be formatted within the online REST Archive context.

We are looking for two types of submissions:

• -already pre-existing online suggestions of references, links, visual and sound assets, maps, memes, text, diagrams, podcasts, books, manifestos, websites

• -creative or authentic submission that will be selected into 25 curated contributions and each selected contributor will receive a 150 euro fee excl. taxes. In this case the contributors must be sole authors of the submitted work or hold copyrights. A selection of creative contributions will be included in curated online exhibitions aimed to be launched in the winter of 2024.

UNTIL WHEN DO YOU HAVE TIME?
Well, anytime you want basically! As we have mentioned above REST Archive will be a continuous submission-based platform, receiving constantly different content around rest, sleep and care. Providing you and other ever-growing resources, knowledge and creative content concerning the politics of rest. You can submit it anytime, from anywhere, as long as your submission follows the guidelines specified above.

For the creative contributions and authentic submissions for the curated online Rest Archive display, the deadline is the 9th of November 2024. We will announce selected contributors by the beginning of December.

Mission

Nocturnalities aims to re-position this thought within the urges that we experience as artists and art practitioners in the Netherlands. The project has been conceptualised and developed by an Amsterdam-based team: artist and researcher Andrea Knezović in further collaboration with editor and publisher Agata Bar. By initiating Nocturnalities we bring the expertise of visual artists, thinkers, curators and Amsterdam-based policy makers and embrace the power of rest, self-care and regeneration. The project aims to bring together a discursive and creative dialogue between artists, institutions and art practitioners by creating a publication and an online archive that is a visual trance witnessing different voices regarding the topic within the local artistic ecologies. The project will involve a broad group of professional visual artists and cultural workers, academics and thinkers as well as cultural institutions. Through their participation in the production of the project: by inviting them to contribute to the publication, online platform and public programme, we aim to open opportunities for knowledge exchange concerning politics of rest and local working conditions, engaging in meetings and/or networking within the art world.

The project tackles the nature and rhythm of the current mentality of the artistic scene—reflecting the zeitgeist of this age’s socioeconomic and bio-political mechanism. Its initial intent is to unify the scattered voices of the art field and reach out in a dialogue that will ripple through different institutional and individual channels.

About

Andrea Knezović is a conceptual visual artist and researcher with a research master in Artistic Research from the University of Amsterdam and a bachelor’s degree from the Academy of Visual Arts, Ljubljana. Knezović’s research centres around the politics of care, its institutional implications and psycho-cultural aspects. Between 2022-2024, Knezović was chair of the board of the Salwa Foundation and co-founder of the art and research platform MARC Amsterdam (2021-2024). She contributed to various discursive journals including MIT Thresholds Journal, Lish Journal, and simulacrum. She exhibited in places such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana; the 10the edition of U3 Triennial at Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana; BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht; Cukrarna, Ljubljana; MIT Keller Gallery, Cambridge, MA; Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam; 12 Star Gallery, London; The Israeli Center for Digital Arts, Holon; Kiribati National Museum, Tarawa; Marx Halle, Vienna; and others. In 2023/2024 she was selected for the BAK Fellowship for Situated Practice in Utrecht. Her works are part of numerous museum and corporate collections, including the Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, NLB Bank, and the SCCA-DIVA Archive. In 2013 and 2015, she was nominated for the Essl Art Award. She lives and works in Amsterdam.

Agata Bar⁠⁠()⁠⁠ is a managing editor and publications producer based in Amsterdam, working primarily in the field of photography, art, and culture. She has been part of the organization and production teams of Photomonth in Krakow and Unseen Amsterdam and managed the production and distribution of Foam Magazine. In the past years, she worked with Noor Images as an editorial director and coordinated publications for Manifesta Biennale. In 2022, in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she co-founded the publishing initiative Growing Pains⁠⁠()⁠⁠. Next to her freelance practice, she also coordinates the Design Department at Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam.

External Collaborators

Miquel Hervás Gómez, graphic designer and educator based on the WWW. Operating in the intersection of the contemporary discourse, publishing and visual communication. Tutor for Preparatory Course⁠⁠()⁠⁠ at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, as well as other international universities. Workshop specialist at the BB⁠⁠()⁠⁠. Active member of fanfare⁠⁠()⁠⁠ and former Carne Kids⁠⁠()⁠⁠.

Web development: François Girard-Meunier.

This project is supported by Mondriaan Fonds⁠⁠()⁠⁠, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst⁠⁠()⁠⁠ and Stimuleringsfonds⁠⁠()⁠⁠.

Typeface: Redaction, inspired by Titus Kaphar and Reginald Dwayne Betts⁠⁠()⁠⁠
and designed by Jeremy Mickel⁠⁠()⁠⁠.