Open Call 2021

For 2021, FestivALT will be inaugurating the establishment of CentrALT – the centre for contemporary Polish Jewish art. CentrALT will be a year-round organization that will be the producer of FestivALT. For 2021, CentrALT is looking for projects that will be presented as part of FestivALT 2021.

CentrALT is the centre for contemporary Polish Jewish art and ideas. Operating at the intersections of art and activism, CentrALT is an interdisciplinary cultural institution presenting contemporary art, conducting artistic research, educational and social activities through the lens of contemporary Jewish Poland. CentrALT produces FestivALT, an annual program of critically minded Jewish art and activism in Kraków, Poland and after 2020 – all over the world!

In 2020, due to Covid, we shifted our activities from a 10-day festival to a year-round program and in doing so began our evolution into a year-round centre for contemporary Polish-Jewish art we now call CentrALT. By positioning ourselves as a year-round organization with consistent programming, we’ve been able to extend our impact, with more focus on deepening and diversifying the focus on our specific areas of interest.

In 2021 we are planning to continue our year-round programming as well as our summer showcase – FestivALT. We are currently preparing the fifth edition of FestivALT, which will take place in the summer of 2021 (dates tba). For this edition, we invite you to take part in our Open Call for projects. For 2021 we will be taking inspiration from this new Covid reality, intersecting with our new reality as CentrALT. As an organization, we are committed to being a space for deep research into contemporary Polish Jewish realities, and for 2021 we will be using the curatorial framework looking at “new realities and possible futures”.

We invite applications from artists from Poland and around the world in the fields of visual art, performance, and activist intervention that engage with contemporary Jewish Poland. We provide an inclusive platform for under-represented voices and perspectives and are particularly interested in projects that intersect with a local conversation about Jewishness in Poland. The submissions need not be specifically about Poland but should be relevant in our local context. We are also drawn to projects that experiment with form and content and investigate or challenge definitions of Jewishness. Due to continued uncertainty connected to the pandemic, we will greatly appreciate it if you would include some information about how your project might function in a reality of restricted sanitary conditions or even virtually. We ask that you please familiarize with our mandate and previous work before submitting.

Please submit your project proposal (including a cover letter no longer than two pages, an artist (or artists) bio, any documentation of the project should it exist, along with, optionally, a link to a portfolio) to info@festivalt.com by February 14, 2021, with “OPEN CALL” and your name in the subject line.
You will hear back from us by the end of March 2021. We may write to you with additional questions about the work, and you are welcome to contact us with any questions of your own.

To learn more about FestivALT and about some of the projects we have produced in the past, please visit festivalt.com and to join our new CentrALT community, come here:

We look forward to hearing from you!