Dear all,
as promised here is the the call for projects for Sideways festival next
year.
I can't send a pdf to the list - this is available to download at:
http://www.sideways2012.be/
but here's the full text from the document. Some of it needs the images from
the pdf to make proper sense (e.g. references to maps) but it gives a good
idea of what it's all about.
All best,
Clare

SIDEWAYS  
Exploring pathscapes in Belgium 
August 17th 'til September 17th 2012

An itinerant initiative for contemporary art and culture, by and for:  
walkers – bikers – wayfarers – spatial planners and unplanners –
excursionists 
– storytellers – vagabonds – hawkers and peddlers – dog walkers – mobile 
peasants – field and street reclaimers – tramps – unicyclers – drifters –
nomads 
– cryptoforesters – commuters – land poets – transhumance pastoralists – 
livable street advocates – peripatetics – roamers – wildcrafters –
nightwalkers – 
lay and experimental geographers – earthworkers – environmental activists– 
ramblers – sci-art practitioners – urban and rural explorers – asphalt 
botanizers – trespassers – adventurous kids – psychogeographers – local 
historians – site-specific performers – travelers – bike messengers –  
hauntologists – horse riders – anarchitects – heterotopia enactors
–naturalists 
– pedestrians – critical massers – shepherds – pilgrims – traffic
transformers – 
fieldworkers – new topographers – carbusters – romantic geographers – 
outdoors people – roadside picnicers – public domain campaigners – 
geomancers – disruptive innovators – joggers – locative media subverters – 
ecocity visionaries – hikers – trekkers – mythogeographers – soundwalkers – 
bicycle assemblers – field recorders – shoe repairers – journeyers – liquid 
urbanists – sightseers – peregrinators – critical cartographers – wanderers –

and everybody going out for a stroll once in a while. 

Sideways is a translocal, experimental festival for contemporary art and
cultural research, exploring 
different ‘pathscapes’ in the northern region of Belgium. This first-time
event will unfold on the go across a 
four week period in the summer of 2012. It foresees a broad program of visual
art, walks, live art and site- 
specific interventions. The project is a joint initiative of an environmental
NGO (Trage Wegen), a visual arts’ 
centre (Verbeke Foundation) and an artist collective (Glasbak).  
 
The festival invites artists and audiences to explore the many non-motorized
paths and trails folded into 
the spaces of our everyday life. We propose the term pathscapes to
differentiate these landscape lines and 
their surroundings form motorized roads and streets. Ubiquitous yet
overlooked, these pathscapes 
comprise a broad diversity of ‘spaces of going’: crooked rural footpaths;
cycleways spanning many 
kilometres; straight tow paths on the banks of waterways; transient ‘desire
lines’ leading from one urban 
area to another; barely perceptible, overgrown backroads; picturesque hollow
ways; etc.  
 
Along these paths and trails, people move around and engage with their
surroundings. Sideways sparks an 
investigation of these familiar places, asking artists to visit them, to
rethink or re-imagine our experiences 
as we go along a variety of pathscapes. As such, the festival aims to
question the past history, present use 
and future potential of these landscape features, as well as our conceptions
of time, space, movement and 
memory.  
 
The event itself moves beyond the conventional spaces of art display and
reception. The Sideways 
programme stages diverse actions and situations on the open-air sites of
paths and trails, both rural and 
urban. The programming blends arts-based and artistic practices with more
vernacular forms of creativity 
and poetic practice that emerge along pathways. As such, Sideways sets out to
create a collaborative meeting 
ground where artists and audiences can experience the multiple charms of
being on the go.   

The festival will be structured in three distinct but intertwined components:

1. Journey. A variable group of people will move across Belgium from west to
east during a four week 
journey, mainly on foot or by bike (see the journey line on the map below).
Through fortuitous 
situations, different forms of spatial engagement - walking, gathering,
camping, etc. - and a series of 
activities - workshops, picnics, encounters, etc. - the traversed landscape
will be touched upon, 
examined, explored and documented. The trek is conceived as an open-ended
process of coming- 
into-being, of distraction and evocation, holiday and research, adventure and
experimental praxis. 
The performers of the trajectory may leave public traces, both physical
(traversed terrain) and 
digital (e.g. festival website and blog). 
2. Festival nodes. Along the journey trail and during the consecutive
weekends of the journey period, 
five sites will turn into festival nodes. Here, the trek comes to a halt,
sets up camp and the festival 
opens up to a broad audience. The local communities involved are (tbc):
Roeselare, Herzele, 
Hoegaarden, Turnhout and Zutendaal (green spots on the map).  Each node or
hub location will 
present a parcourse of concentrated activity: a sequence of live, sonic and
visual art to be 
experienced and enjoyed by an itinerant festival audience. The local
pathscapes become nomadic 
narratives, sites of conception, production and presentation of art works, as
well as a platform for 
public participation and dialogue. 
3. Conference. The festival includes a one-day conference at one of the
festival nodes, bringing 
together scholars, artists, cultural practitioners, pathscape users, NGO’s
and the interested public. 
By staging a series of lectures, panels, workshops, discussions and
performances, the Sideways 
conference aims to provide a platform for a broader exchange and a shared
development of 
knowledge. 

Invitation for participation 
 
The Sideways Festival is currently accepting artists’ proposals.  
 
General considerations and requirements 
- All projects must engage with the main thematic thread of Sideways
(pathscapes) or address related 
questions (see also project background below). 
- Proposals may concern the journey component of the festival (or a phase
thereof), as well as an 
intervention at one of the festival nodes (or a combination of both).  
- Sideways is an outdoor festival taking place along actual footpaths,
cycleways and backroads.  
Projects should consider the here and now of these sites: alongside people
purposefully visiting the 
festival event, many passers-by will come across the works by chance.
Overall, audience 
engagement will be essential to the success of the experiences, for both
artist and audience.  
- Art projects can deal with the sites (pathscapes) in various ways:
physically, experientially, socially, 
by association, etc. Projects can take the form of outdoor installations,
choreographed physical 
activities, artist-led excursions, work with new/locative media, meetings,
ephemeral gestures, 
performances, sculptures, mapping, etc. Artists may also be involved in the
shaping of the festival 
journey (introducing cues for action, a consistent attribute or focus, a blog
or log book, etc.).  
- The festival organisation will facilitate local partnerships, undertake all
negotiations to allow 
projects to use public/private space and provide the necessary production
facilities (residencies, 
promotional support, assistance in development of the project etc.). However,
artists are expected to 
be highly involved in the preparation and installation of their exhibit,
project or performance. 
 
Procedure and timeline 
The collaboration with artists is based upon the procedure outlined below.
Depending on the dynamics of 
the festival’s development, some elements may be added or altered.  
- August 15th 2011 – Deadline for receipt of proposals and applications. 
- Projects will be reviewed and selected by a jury panel including art
experts and the Sideways team. 
Notification of accepted proposals will follow latest August 30th 2011. 
- A series of prospective visits to different festival sites will be
organized in September 2011. Selected 
artists will be invited to take part in these exchange meetings, conceived as
moments to explore the 
terrain, match expectations, finetune project forms, etc.  
- Selected projects will be realised, presented and/or performed as part of
the Sideways festival, 
between August 17th and September 17th 2012 (tbc). 
 Invitation for participation 
 
The Sideways Festival is currently accepting artists’ proposals.  
 
General considerations and requirements 
- All projects must engage with the main thematic thread of Sideways
(pathscapes) or address related 
questions (see also project background below). 
- Proposals may concern the journey component of the festival (or a phase
thereof), as well as an 
intervention at one of the festival nodes (or a combination of both).  
- Sideways is an outdoor festival taking place along actual footpaths,
cycleways and backroads.  
Projects should consider the here and now of these sites: alongside people
purposefully visiting the 
festival event, many passers-by will come across the works by chance.
Overall, audience 
engagement will be essential to the success of the experiences, for both
artist and audience.  
- Art projects can deal with the sites (pathscapes) in various ways:
physically, experientially, socially, 
by association, etc. Projects can take the form of outdoor installations,
choreographed physical 
activities, artist-led excursions, work with new/locative media, meetings,
ephemeral gestures, 
performances, sculptures, mapping, etc. Artists may also be involved in the
shaping of the festival 
journey (introducing cues for action, a consistent attribute or focus, a blog
or log book, etc.).  
- The festival organisation will facilitate local partnerships, undertake all
negotiations to allow 
projects to use public/private space and provide the necessary production
facilities (residencies, 
promotional support, assistance in development of the project etc.). However,
artists are expected to 
be highly involved in the preparation and installation of their exhibit,
project or performance. 
 
Procedure and timeline 
The collaboration with artists is based upon the procedure outlined below.
Depending on the dynamics of 
the festival’s development, some elements may be added or altered.  
- August 15th 2011 – Deadline for receipt of proposals and applications. 
- Projects will be reviewed and selected by a jury panel including art
experts and the Sideways team. 
Notification of accepted proposals will follow latest August 30th 2011. 
- A series of prospective visits to different festival sites will be
organized in September 2011. Selected 
artists will be invited to take part in these exchange meetings, conceived as
moments to explore the 
terrain, match expectations, finetune project forms, etc.  
- Selected projects will be realised, presented and/or performed as part of
the Sideways festival, 
between August 17th and September 17th 2012 (tbc). 
 
Proposals - application details 
Applications must be written in English, French or Dutch. The complete
application (paper or digital form) 
should be sent to the following address before August 15th 2011: 
Trage Wegen vzw 
Andy Vandevyvere 
Kasteellaan 349A 
9000 Gent (Belgium) 
[log in to unmask] 
Please make certain to include at least the following information: 
1. Contact details – name, postal and email address, telephone number and
website (if applicable) 
2. Name of the project – What’s the working title of your intervention? 
3. Project synopsis – Give us an explanation of the proposed artistic
project. What happens (or is 
supposed to happen) when an audience experiences your work? Describe its
scope or ambition – 
what is it trying to achieve or trigger? How does it respond to the specific
locations of paths and 
trails? How does this intervention relate to your practice in general? 
4. Project form – What kind of work do you propose (performance,
installation, walk, web-based, 
sculpture, etc.)? What’s the imagined site for your project (a particular
path, trail or route; adjacent 
fields, walls or trees, etc.)? What’s the length/duration of the project?
What’s the current state of 
this particular project (ongoing, to be initiated, etc.)? Which specialized
needs or considerations 
should be taken into account (unusual space or installation requirements,
production conditions, 
dependency on weather situation, etc.)?  
5. Detailed budget – What’s the projected cost for the realization of the
project? Please include the 
following items:  your proposed fee, technical costs, material costs. 
6. Optional: any useful element to help us understand your idea and proposal
- drawings, photos, 
books, maps, reviews, etc. 

Project background 
 
Sideways is an artist- and NGO-driven initiative meant to provide a meeting
ground for emerging and 
established artists and the multiple users of paths and trails. The project
explores the ways in which these 
everyday spaces can be used as a challenging environment to address issues
regarding mobility and 
landscape, as well as to expand notions of what art can be.  
 
As spaces of movement, paths and trails are themselves ‘in transit’, always
in process and under 
construction. In the last century, the once close-knit fabric of ancient
footpaths and cart tracks gradually 
fragmented as a result of the rise of car culture, sprawling
(sub)urbanisation and the intensifying and 
scaling up of agricultural land-use. Today, the decline of this ‘slow
mobility’ infrastructure is increasingly 
thwarted by advocates and users stressing its importance for traffic safety,
local ecosystem development, 
heritage conservation, social encounters and tourism. Both the deterioration
of century-old pathways and 
the restoration of pre-existing tracks follow an uneven course and, as a
result, we encounter a 
discontinuous series of passages, interruptions and reprises, dead ends and
overgrown backroads, blind 
spots and missing links. Pathways become unsettled places, where the past is
simultaneously absent and 
present, in limbo between decline/restoration,
privatization/re-appropriation, oblivion/rediscovery, 
preservation/ transformation. 
 
Sideways proposes to consider paths, cycleways and backroads in their
multiple and dynamic aspects. Far 
more than a physical trace inscribed on the earth’s surface, a trail is
tantamount to a movement, an act of 
crossing, the performance of the passage or the journey. As a location for
encounter and exchange, the path 
occurs as a nexus of symbols and meanings, memories and stories, a site where
events unroll and 
subjectivities emerge. Underneath, some further lines of inquiry are
suggested as thematic anchors for the 
Sideways festival and for artists’ projects. 

Memory lane 
Pathways are spatial archives, animated 
with stories and allowing us to travel 
into the past. Which legends, myths, 
anecdotes and rumours cluster along 
these routes? How do personal and 
collective memories intertwine? Have 
traditional tales been broken into 
fragments in much the same way as 
ancient tracks have fallen into uncanny 
dilapidation? Can the footsteps of the 
past be re-enacted into the immediacy of 
the present experience? Can stories be 
recovered by (re-)telling them? And how 
can narrative threads from the past be 
tied to a strong sense of the future?  

Future mobilities 
How do pathways fit into the system of 21st century 
mobilities? Which tensions exist between the maze of 
meandering, non-motorized tracks and the grid of car 
infrastructure (itself progressively turning into a total 
‘automobility system’ gridlock)? What role do footpaths 
and cycleways play in the search for sustainable 
(im)mobility in a post-car-society? Being labelled ‘slow 
routes’ in Belgium, these transport lines seem to contrast 
sharply with the frenetic flows associated with 
contemporary hyper- and aeromobility. How do they 
reconfigure our notions of travel and journeys, speed and 
distance, stillness and movement? 
 
 
 
(Un)easy access 
Trails appear as contested places within wider power-geometries that 
are caught in differentiated processes of negotiation. Whereas 
mobility along well-known, multi-user paths is regulated by tourist 
info panels, nameplates, direction signs, route markers and printed 
guides, the passage of a great deal of other pathways is obstructed by 
no entrance signs, fences, gates or barbed wire. Still other tracks 
remain hidden as nearly forgotten leftover spaces, fluid and 
indeterminate interstices where rules and codes can still be redefined. 
How does this dynamic link up to issues of property, access, zoning 
and the programming of space? How are ‘the right to roam’ and ‘the 
gentle art of trespassing’ articulated along pathways? Do these spaces 
of movement allow residents to gain access to their neighbourhood, to 
appropriate and reinvent the surroundings? How do they challenge 
common boundaries between ‘settled’ and ‘nomadic’ space? 

Creative entanglements 
Pathways and trails can be addressed as complex 
assemblages of humans, plants, animals, artifacts, 
technologies and physical landscape features. From the 
practice of wildcrafting or the dispersal of plant seeds by 
animal or human footfall to conscious greenway design 
and planning: multiple encounters between the human 
and the non-human can be observed or imagined along 
pathway lines. What’s the agency of the other-than-human 
within these multiple, intersecting networks?  How do 
sites, materials, nutrients, water, plants, animals, human 
bodies and architecture fit together? What kind of 
interspecies collaborations can be recognized, both 
existing and potential? How do the dynamic, hybrid 
geographies of pathways blur the line between the natural 
and the artificial, between the human and the nonhuman? 
 
 
 
 
Dynamic mapping 
Who produces maps and what do maps produce? Although 
geographical maps originated as illustrated stories of journeys 
and itineraries, modern cartography has mostly been limited to 
two-dimensional representations of territories by means of 
points, lines and surfaces. What are the possibilities to re-present 
the dynamic meshwork of paths and trails all while moving 
beyond the conventions of abstract, static maps? How do 
cartographic visions become expressive tools, depicting the 
cultural, sensitive and imaginative dimensions of these 
landscape features? And in what ways do maps mediate 
between geographic space and virtual/networked space? In sum, 
how is our movement ‘on the ground’ affected by mapmaking 
and vice versa? 
  
 
 
 
Step-wise 
The act of walking plays a pivotal role in the 
Sideways festival. Beyond sheer locomotion, walking 
has been heralded as a primary act of 
transformation of the territory, both physically (the 
path as trace, the enduring result of a process of 
inscription, of the movement of many generations) 
and symbolically (producing ‘spatial narratives’). 
Can the festival journey instigate a renewed 
engagement with the fragmented, urbanized Belgian 
topography? How does the walker sense, read, 
frame, apprehend, value, overlook, suppress and 
interact with the contemporary environment? Does 
journeying on foot along pathways challenge our 
ideas about land use, the affordances of the terrain, 
centre and periphery, orientation and perception, 
the beautiful and the picturesque or locality and 
authenticity? And what’s the potential feedback of 
walking into planning and building? 

Sideways team 
 
Trage Wegen --- www.tragewegen.be 
Trage Wegen is a non-profit platform organization formed in 2002 and
assembling more than 40 NGO's 
active in different fields (environment, mobility, recreation, landscape
development, etc.). Its main focus is 
the dynamic conservation, restoration and multifunctional development of
paths and trails in the Flanders 
Region of Belgium. 
Verbeke Foundation --- www.verbekefoundation.com  
With 12 hectares of scenic area and 20.000 m² covered spaces, the Verbeke
Foundation is one of the largest 
private initiatives for contemporary art throughout Europe, using former
transport warehouses as unique 
exposition halls. Manifesting a special interest in the myriad connections
between art and ecology, the arts’ 
centre itself resembles a living organism, presenting artistic processes that
are unfinished, in motion, 
unpolished, contradictory, untidy, complex, inharmonious, living and
unmonumental, like the world 
outside of the museum walls. 
Glasbak --- www.glasbak.edosia.org  
Glasbak is an artistic collective and expressive laboratory exploring
mobility and movement. Their music 
and performances originate from the emergency to deal with the environment,
both mental and physical, 
solitary and collective, in the city or at the countryside. The Way is a
collective soundwalk with music based 
on the particular history and pattern of a country road.  With Thankstation
they invite the public to be part 
of their ceremony of last honours to the petrol station.  They show gratitude
for fossil services rendered, in 
a nostalgic farewell to a certain way of being on the road. Thankstation is
to be performed at your local gas 
station. 
 
Practical information 
E-mail Andy at [log in to unmask]  
or call: (0032) (0)9 / 3315920 
www.sideways2012.com  

-----------------------
Clare Qualmann FHEA
Institute for Performing Arts Development 
University of East London 
Docklands Campus, EB1.12
http://www.clarequalmann.co.uk
http://www.walkwalkwalk.org.uk
http://www.walkingartistsnetwork.org