Are you a digital artist or a creative writer? Participate in the DARTS contests!
There is no time to lose, deadline for submitting applications is 25 November 2015!!!

The European project DARTS (Digital Art and Storytelling for Heritage Audience Development), one of the 4 Italian small-scale cooperation project funded by Creative Europe in 2014, launches two international contests of digital art and creative writing. They aim at involving European young creative talents to experiment new ways of enhancing the European built heritage. The partners ask for participants to tell new stories about the past of the three buildings that are their headquarters: the Villa Rufoloin Ravello, Italy; the Landcommanderij of Alden Biesen, Belgium and the Corvin Castle in Transylvania, Romania.

Artists and writers over 18 years can participate in the contests by submitting one or more works created alone or in team. The theme of the contests is related to the historical buildings. Stories, characters, photos, documents, events are collected in the website of the project (www.e-darts.eu) to motivate and inspire new ways of telling centuries of history of these places.
The contests will have an unusual lifetime. From their launch to the end a whole year will pass. Participants should overcome two stages that will be different for the two contests.
In the first stage of the contest of digital art the international jury of experts (Marco Mancuso, critic and curator; WimTilkin, all-rounder artist, Sabin Borş, curator and art writer) will select 18 artworks, 6 for each building. The selected artists will stay free accommodation for a week-end at the historical building they chose as inspiration in order to finalize their works, by visiting in person the places, breathing the genius loci, taking pictures, collecting documents and useful materials, interviewing local people.
In the second stage the jury panel of experts chaired by Michel Reilhac, original French artistic director and transmedia storyteller. Three artworks, one for each building, will be awarded during the international Ravello Festival, a special event that yearly attracts artists and musicians from all over the world.The winners of the contest will receive a money prize (€500), the opportunity to install their works at the historical buildings, a free accommodation and atelier for two weeks at the Trossi Uberti Fondazione in Livorno, Italy, or at one of the royal residences included in the network ARRE.
In the first stage of the contest of creative writing the submitted stories will be evaluated by the national juries, in the second stage the best stories will be translated in English and evaluated by the international jury panel of experts, made up of the Flemish storyteller Frank Degruyter, the Italian writer Martino Gozzi, the Romanian historian Raluca Bem Neamu.
The winners will be awarded with a money prize (500€) during the international Storytelling Festival in Alden Biesen, Belgio. Invited as special guests, they can live the backstage of the festival, meet famous storytellers coming from all over the world and breathing the magic atmosphere of the tales animated by voice and body. Their stories will printed in a special edition that will be also distributed online.
In the project website the young artists and writers will have their own workspace, where they can upload their biography and their works, explaining their creative process, post their social profile messages. In this virtual space they could describe themselves and share their views with other people.
The internet users could use the virtual space to leave a comment and give a preferential vote for an artist, a writer or a work. At the end of the contests the top rated works will be awarded by an important European cultural organization.
During the project a short traveling movie containing the best works submitted to the contest will be projected on the walls of the historic buildings amplifying the relationship between the past and the future.

And now it’s time to participate!

 Under the auspices of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Mr Thorbjørn JAGLAND