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The Discovery guide project
“A Discovery Guide for Recovery” – a project co-funded by Creative Europe – has just launched an open call for six artists (including two Ukrainians) interested in co-designing with Ukrainian communities a “non-touristic” guidebook on the present and future of Ukraine.
The project aims at supporting artists and cultural organisations in Ukraine, and to showcase Ukrainian culture and resilience to a wider audience. Taking inspiration from the “Sarajevo Survival Guide” produced by a collective of artists in 1992 during the siege of the city and the “Nonturismo” methodology for art-based community engagement in rural and fragile areas, for two years (January 2025 – December 2026) the project engages local communities, Ukrainian at-risk and international artists in a collective drafting process. The co-created result will be a provocative artistic guidebook of the Ukrainian district of Bakota, that helps the international community to navigate the complexity of the present times of war in Ukraine. The guide will be edited by a professional publisher and will be distributed throughout Europe in festivals and book fairs.
The Open Call for Artists
“A discovery guide for Ukraine” call for artists is open to individual artists working with any media and who are citizens or permanent residents of all EU eligible countries (list) including Ukraine.
Applicants are called to design unconventional tours to discover the Ukrainian region of Bakota, in Western Ukraine, by involving the inhabitants in a process of recovering memories of the past, raising awareness on opportunities and problems of the present, foreseeing possible future scenarios. Artists will be hosted for a two-week art residency at Bakota Hub, a cultural centre in Horaivka, Khmelnytskyi Oblast (Southwestern of Ukraine), created on the basis of a former abandoned school and used in the two past years as a shelter for internally displaced people. The tours will be printed and published in an international guidebook dedicated to non-tourists, those who do not travel to collect postcards but to discover the authentic spirit of a territory.
The publication will be designed in the style of a traditional travel guide with a mixture of essays, images and image essays. The texts will be in Ukrainian and English. The art direction and design of the publication will be overseen by a graphic design studio or individual designer. It will be published together with Fundacja Ziemniak i.
What is offered
“A discovery guide for Ukraine” open call for artists offers 6 residency opportunities.
The residency will take place between September and November 2025 for a period of 2 weeks (exact dates will be discussed with the selected participants).
Selected artists will receive:
- a grant of EUR 3000 €;
- travel to and hospitality at Bakota Hub (Horaivka, Khmelnytskyi Oblast, Ukraine) during 2 weeks of residence;
- 3-days three-day capacity building activity in Warsaw in 14-17 July 2025 (travel costs are covered by the partners) on the art & community-based methodology that artists are invited to adopt for developing the proposed artwork;
- artistic curatorial and tutoring feedback sessions;
- network and exchange opportunities with other residency artists at Bakota Hub in Ukraine;
- artwork featured in an international publication;
- International dissemination of the publication in festival and book fairs.
Who can apply
The call is open to artists active in any field (illustration, writing, photography, artistic research, etc), who:
- are individual (duos and collectives are not eligible);
- are citizens of EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories) as well as the List of non-EU Participating Countries in the Creative Europe Programme. In both cases, the origin of the artist can be proven either by the nationality or, for permanent residents, by a valid permit of residency.
Each artist is responsible for their own VISA, if requested by the origin country. - have a working knowledge of English.
The Discovery Guide consortium partners, their affiliates, employees or permanent collaborators are not eligible for funding within this open call.
Special attention will be given to artists with previous experience in collaborating with communities.
The art residency at Bakota Hub, in Ukraine
The selected artists will have the opportunity to be hosted in Bakota Hub, a cultural center in Bakota district, in the Khmelnytsky region (Southwestern Ukraine), near the border with Moldova.
Created as a space for hosting art residencies in 2021 by the organizers of the Respublica music and street art festival on the basis of a former abandoned school, in 2022, the artistic activities have been temporarily suspended and the hub turned into a shelter for internally displaced people (IDPs) for 1.5 years. Today in this space ten murals, numerous artworks, and a local museum have been created, and the village has become a vibrant cultural hub.
Here, NGO Territory runs various cultural, artistic and educational projects, and the selected artists will have the opportunity to interact with local at-risk and international artists, local communities such as youth, veterans and their families, internally displaced people, but also cyclists, yoga practitioners, and travelers that the hub hosts.
The Region where Bakota Hub is located is the most popular tourist destination in Ukraine according to Google searches. Over the past three years, the number of tourists visiting the region has tripled, attracting young people and families who have already purchased homes and moved to the village – but there’s not a town called Bakota on the map.
The history of Bakota ended in 1981, when during the construction of the Novodnistrovska hydroelectric power station by the Soviet authorities, the town was completely flooded with water, as were dozens of neighboring towns and villages with a rich historical and cultural heritage. Now the entire Bakota is under water, and the towns and villages around the Bakota Bay on the high bank of the Dniester Reservoir are conventionally named after it.
As after the flood in the 1980s, Ukraine’s heritage is under attack within the framework of the Russian’s aggression, and people are again forced to move. The “Discovery guide” art residency can be an occasion to revitalise the region and investigate the special connection between the past and the present of Bakota, and the current experiences of local inhabitants and displaced people.
Bakota Hub offers accommodation in rooms for 1–2 people. There are shared shower and toilet facilities available. A shared kitchen equipped with all necessary appliances is also available, with open access for all participants. Also, the place is equipped with Wi-Fi and various household amenities needed for living. The hub has three multipurpose halls that can be used for work. These halls are equipped with everything necessary, including a projector, screen, TV, speakers, microphones, microphone stands, sound equipment (mixer), musical instruments, easels, and more.
The non-touristic tours
Too often, in regeneration projects, art represents an “embellishment” out of context, which does not represent the identity of the local community. At the same time, these processes too often include the inhabitants of the place in a marginal way, applying top-down models that do not dialogue with the territory and citizens.
With this open call we would like to invert this process. That’s why this open call is looking for artists capable of dialoguing with local communities and building with them valuable territorial narratives. Artists who apply for this open call are asked to produce content for an “unconventional” touristic guidebook that subverts the classic category of tourist book. The content requested to the applicants is “non-touristic” tour that can be geographical, thematic, speculative, but it must address a relevant issue for navigating the present situation in Ukraine. The open call asks for an itinerary conceived in a format which can be included in a printed guidebook.
As a source of inspiration artists can explore the Sarajevo Survival Guide and the Nonturismo guidebook (excerpt).
To acquire the skills selected artists need for developing the proposed “non-touristic” tour, the call will offer them a co-design lab and a three-days training activity in Warsaw, hosted by the project partner Fundacja Ziemniaki i (PL) and run by the project coordinator Sineglossa (IT). During the training artists will have the opportunity to learn how to manage an art- based community process aligned with values and approaches inspired by the New European Bauhaus Compass and the Nonturismo methodology.
How to apply
Applications must be submitted via the google form, no later than the 30. April 25, 23:59 CET. The application requires:
- General personal information (name, surname, age, gender, nationality, country of residence, mail, phone, link on webpage or social media);
- Motivation to apply for this specific call;
- Description of any previous experience with communities;
- Proposal and relevant experience:
- A proposal shortly describing the expected artwork (max 1500 characters) highlighting the overall topic that will inspire the itinerary. It is not compulsory but a 3 min video can also be uploaded to better explain the concept.
- A portfolio with links of past works relevant for the application.
- Consent: a tick box for the applicants to confirm they have read and agree and comply with the conditions outlined in the Guide for Applicants.
Applicants can submit only 1 proposal.
Must Read Before Applying
Bakota is a rural location and is far from the frontline, but the selected artists must be aware that there is a war going on in Ukraine. The partner organisations will take all necessary steps to ensure – within their possibilities – the best security conditions, but the choice to participate in the residency, in such a context, is the personal responsibility of the artist.
