Call for Submissions

OSA Archivum “Subjective Maps of Budapest” Competition

As an international research institute and archive, OSA Archivum is known for its innovative ways of making public and using documents about the history of the recent past and human rights violations. OSA Archivum was founded by George Soros in 1995 as one of the research, educational and cultural centers of Central European University. Over the past years, several of the exhibitions organized by OSA Archivum have demonstrated that artistic creation can reinterpret traditional genres, frameworks and taxonomies. Maps, on the borderline between the old and the new worlds, are a source of inspiration for mixing hyper-realistic ambitions with imagination. Cartography and art, in a large part owing to new technological solutions, have stepped beyond aesthetic coexistence and have opened to social problems. Today, the hybrid products of cartography and visual art address enticing issues such as citizenship, the nation, transnational migration, regionalism, the asymmetry of capital and power, and public control. With the tools of cartography, imaginative artists can present their views about the world and the history of the recent past in an ironic, utopian way. This competition organized by OSA Archivum focuses on Budapest and the city’s past two decades: how the city and its residents, immersed in history and at the same time reacting to the challenges of globalization, can be represented through an interdisciplinary dialogue, the sharing of ideas between the cartographer, the researcher and the artist. Preferred topics for submissions are the functions, space, life, memories, movements, problems, changes, initiatives and hidden networks of the city. (An interactive blind map will be made available for competitors submitting “geotagged” photos to position their photos upon.)


The purpose of the competition:

• Provide the opportunity for young Hungarian visual artists, cartographers and urban planners to make themselves known and to cooperate

• Organize an exhibition of cartographic art and map-related creations at OSA Archivum’s Galeria Centralis that reflect Budapest’s social issues of the past twenty years


Eligible competitors:

Primarily students of cartography and geoinformatics, urban studies, new media and art


Criteria:

Submitted works should be maps, urban networks or works reflecting on the problems of cartography that present Budapest in the period between 1990 and 2010.

Genre is not specified.

A condition for participation in the competition is that the creator (or creators, in the case of group works) may submit only one work. Creators can submit only original works of their own that comply with the conditions of the competition.


Documents to be submitted:

- an artistic and technical description of the work or project no longer than one page (1500 characters)
- visual plan
- budget
- CV of competitor(s)

This is a two-round competition. In the first round, the deadline for mailing competition documents is midnight on May 1, 2010.

Send documents by e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or submit two copies on CD or DVD personally or by post to OSA, 1051, Budapest, Arany János utca 32.

Please write “Subjective Budapest Maps” on the envelope.

Submissions will not be judged anonymously. Please include your name(s) and contact information.

Only submissions selected in the first round will enter the second round. Competitors chosen for the second round will be informed by May 31, 2010. Three winners selected by a professional jury will receive a cash award from OSA.

The possibility for consultation for competitors advancing to the second round will be provided at OSA Archivum’s Galeria Centralis.

Deadline for the second round: September 1, 2010

Submitted works will be shown in an exhibition that opens in October 2010 at Galeria Centralis.

The exhibition will be open daily from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (closed on Mondays).


Queries concerning the competition can be sent to the attention of curator Szilvia Seres at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ; telephone: (36 1) 327-3250.