Works+Words

NEW DEADLINE! 18 OCTOBER, 2021, 12 PM GMT+2

WORKS+WORDS 2022 Biennale in Artistic Research in Architecture

The Royal Danish Academy invites proposals for WORKS+WORDS 2022, Biennale in Artistic Research in Architecture, to be held in the Library Hall at the Round Tower in Copenhagen from 4 November 2022 to 8 January 2023.

WORKS+WORDS 2022 will present contemporary artistic research within the field of architecture. This call is distributed to architecture schools and research environments worldwide in the ambition to present diversified and highly qualified material at the Biennale.

Artistic research aims at developing new ground in architecture and is characterized by combining the making of works with reflections in words. It is an integrated part of an architectural process, which leads to a publicly accessible work accompanied by a textual reflection on the finished work.

WORKS+WORDS 2022, Biennale in Artistic Research in Architecture, operates with three criteria for artistic research within the field of architecture, as defined by the Royal Danish Academy: clarity, density and depth.

The Role of Artistic Research in Contemporary Architecture

What is the status on artistic research in the international research community, and how do we expand and advance the role of artistic research in architecture? Today, research institutions use relevance as a primary criterium. Research is typically asked to engage with societal problems and offer new solutions to urgent problems. When emphasis is placed insistently on solutions, we risk that established mindsets are repeated in new guises. We might even lose touch with constantly changing conditions and not engage with the crucial issues we originally intended to. Therefore, the pursuit for solutions cannot stand alone. It is equally important how problems are explored and redefined. A problem is not simply an undesirable condition but a dynamic set of factors for which many solutions can be found.  

Artistic research in architecture contributes by challenging and re-imagining the field of architecture. The mission of WORKS+WORDS 2022 is to demonstrate how artistic research reflects on the fundamental problems developing the field of architecture today.

Contributors are asked to present a reflection and a work that embodies a central problem in their practice. The contribution should be placed in one of the following three categories:

1. An abstract project 
The contribution reflects on an architectural problem through an exploration of architectural media and a written reflection. The contribution should not follow the conventional standards of an architectural project addressing a site and a programme.   

2. A project proposal
The contribution addresses an architectural problem through the making of a project proposal and a written reflection. The contribution can work with a concrete site and programme, but it is also possible to submit an imaginary project. 

3. A realised project 
The contribution presents a realised architectural project through an exhibition object developed for WORKS+WORDS 2022 and a written reflection explaining the key issues of the work .    

The three categories mark a continuum from exploratory and open-ended work to realised projects. We are fully aware that a given proposal may combine the categories in one way or another, but we kindly ask that the categories be used, possibly in combination, to indicate the nature of your work.  

WORKS+WORDS 2022 will show a selection of artistic research in architecture produced between 2017–2022, as well as present reflections in written form and discuss outcomes of research in dialogues held alongside the exhibition.

The scope of WORKS+WORDS 2022 is to frame the status of artistic research in architecture by presenting works produced by architects who are researchers or research students working within the field of artistic research, chosen from submissions to this open call.

The deadline for submitting a work abstract in response to this call is 18 October 2021, 12 PM +2.

The work abstract is a short synopsis of the central idea of the work, supported by a selection of sketches or representations of the intended artefact/work. The work must be contemporary and produced in 2017 or later.

The final submissions must take the form of an artefact and a paper. We welcome submissions of both final research and work-in-progress. A curating committee will select the works to be presented. 

The exhibition venue is the Round Tower (Rundetårn), an important monument in the center of Copenhagen. It attracts a large number of visitors with different backgrounds. We therefore ask you to consider the nature of your work presentation so that it can be received by people without deeper insight into artistic research. The papers will be presented and discussed at a parallel arrangement at the Royal Danish Academy located elsewhere in Copenhagen.