Version 12 Call for Submissions

What happens when you invite cultural workers, urban entrepreneurs, artists, designers, foodies, public space hackers, urban planners, community activists, and dreamers to swarm a neighborhood and transform it for one month? Version 12: Bridgeport The Community of the Future.

This May 2012, we're inviting you to come visit us in Bridgeport, a Chicago neighborhood, and join in on our month-long urban experiment. During the Eleventh Annual Version Festival, we will be opening and remixing twelve temporary spaces, businesses, enterprises and projects, all to celebrate the neighborhood we love and call home. And then we're going to use these places as home bases, networks, and maps, all to energize our local environs for long-term change - but we need your help to make it happen.

Version 12 seeks collaborators and partners to help us re-imagine the tactical urbanization of our hood. We will supply the spaces for your project and help coordinate the activities and ideas that you would like to share with our communities.

Right now our plans include opening up the following: a used bookstore, a nightly performance space in a church, a home brewing club kitchen, a department store/gallery showcasing all locally manufactured small batch and artisanal products, nomadic collaborative restaurants and community kitchens, parking lot flea markets, a neighborhood tourism bureau, and a rotating exhibition space for artists and designers. And we're still looking! We need groups and individuals to open or manage temporary stores, co-working spaces... any choose-your-own pop-up space endeavor you can imagine.

Of course, there are other ways to participate too. You could also create or install public art in the hood, volunteer at a space, bring your food cart or truck to the neighborhood, conduct a public space hack, farm in a local urban garden, perform at one of our venues, or just stop by and dive in. Everyone is welcome!

The festival is co-produced by Public Media Institute (PMI) and dozens of our neighbors, friends, and business owners here in Bridgeport. PMI is a non-profit 501(c) 3, community based, arts & culture organization located in Chicago, Illinois. Our mission is to create and incubate innovative arts programming and cultural infrastructures to transform people - socially and intellectually – through the production of festivals, art spaces, events, exhibitions, community projects, artifacts and media. Public Media Institute is committed to the region's cultural ecology and is evident through our series of programs, spaces and projects. http://www.publicmediainstitute.org

WANT IN? LET US KNOW HOW YOU'D LIKE TO GET INVOLVED. PLEASE RESPOND BY MARCH 1, 2012 AND
EMAIL YOUR RESPONSE TO --> versionfest12@gmail.com

PLEASE CHOOSE ONE (OR MORE!) OF THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS:
[ ] opening up a space
[ ] performing
[ ] making or installing public art
[ ] providing a service to the neighborhood
[ ] having your product featured in our department store
[ ] volunteering
[ ] other

YOUR NAME:
EMAIL:
TELEPHONE:
WEBSITE (it's OK if you don't have one though):

ONE PARAGRAPH PROPOSAL - let us know what you want to do!:

PLEASE INCLUDE 3-6 images up to 1,000 pixels wide