TRANSIT

European young talents forum
1 Sep 2009 - 31 Aug 2011

In 2009, the European Media Art Festival initiated TRANSIT as a European project to promote students of Media Art. Students are to be given the opportunity to attend workshops where they can develop artistic projects to the presentation stage. They shall also be given the chance to exhibit their work at internationally renowned festivals. In cooperation with the festival Videoformes in Clermont Ferrand (F) and the artists’ centre FLACC in Genk (B), the concept of the network was born in close collaboration with Contour Mechenelen (B). Ten higher education institutions and academies from Tallinn (EST), Poznan (PL), Kiel (D), Karlsruhe (D), Enschede (NL), Ghent (B), Brussels (B), Le Fresnoy Tourcoing (F), Poitiers (F) and Clermont Ferrand (F) are also involved in the project - outstanding schools in six countries of the European Union. 
This is how we are building up a network of art schools that share a well-grounded vision on moving image art and a strong belief in its prospects. TRANSIT has the ambition to be a European young talents forum. It will enable the trans-national mobility of a large number of artists as well as a trans-national circulation of works of art. The theme is: “Moving Image Art as a Witness” as an individual memory of past events, as a personal observer and commentator of things happening now, as a visionary of future developments. 
The main objective of the TRANSIT project is to discover new talented artists involved in moving image art and to offer them appropriate facilities for development and presentation at the European level, enabling a number of promising artists to make their way, their transit, to the art world. 
The project follows a two-year plan in which students are given the opportunity to show their work. After local pre-selections at the art schools, a final selection of 26 artists will take place. Their art will make up the content of two special Transit exhibitions at the European Media Art Festival and the Vidéoformes in spring 2011. 
The high quality of the 60 works presented to the jury was obvious even at the selection session in Brussels in September 2010. The commission, made up of representatives from the higher education institutions, the festivals and the artists' centre, selected sixteen artists whose works will be presented in the exhibitions at the EMAF in Osnabrück and ten others who will participate in Videoformes in Clermont Ferrand. Six of these students will also be given the opportunity to develop their work in the studios of the artists’ centre FLACC in Genk (Belgium).
The wide variety and high quality of European Media Art become apparent in the exhibitions. The spectrum of styles and diversity of the artistic works with moving image media range from experimental video productions and multichannel video installations to interactive oeuvres, sculptural-kinetic works and even performances and live video. The European Media Art Festival, Videoformes and FLACC look forward to these excellent examples of media art work and to the impressive results of the network. They wish the participants success in their transitory path to and through the art world. 
TRANSIT is funded by the European Union’s culture programme.

Coordinator: 
EMAF, European Media Art Festival
Osnabrueck, Germany
attendant: Hermann Nöring (hnoering@emaf.de)
www.emaf.de

Co-organizers: 
Vidéoformes 
Clermont-Ferrand, France 
attendant: Gabriel Soucheyre (gabrielsoucheyre@videoformes.com) 
www.nat.fr/videoformes

FLACC 
Genk, Belgium 
attendant: Sarah Indeherberge (sarah@flacc.info) 
www.flacc.info