Version Programming Platforms

Each year we accept around 200-350 initiatives, works and projects for exhibition, participation and representation in Version festival. We try to facilitate and realize ones that best fit the festival's goals, budgets, and capabilities. Most works and projects are typically programmed under the following project threads:

Version Group Show: The Audacity of Art
The Audacity of Art exhibition reveals big plans, dream projects and Immodest Proposals through the creation of interactive installations, project documentation, models, sculpture and conceptual art.

NFO XPO
The NFO XPO (pronounced "info expo") brings art groups and community orgs together to exchange information and ideas as well as provide a public platform for each group to present themselves. WE see it as a trade show for experimental art, emerging spaces, and radical exchange. It's our version of what an art fair could be.

See the calendar entry on April 25 for more information. Visit the NFO XPO directory (coming soon) for an annotated list of participating artists, groups, spaces and projects.

Shelter Corps
Benton House Lot 3052 S Gratten Avenue
24+ Artists
12 Versions of Shelter
1 One Hundred Year Old Lot.

Shelter Corps Is an exercise in adaptive land use and an experiment in material reuse.
It will be on display through May 3rd, 2009. See April 25 program for details.

Bridgeport WPA (link)
Imagine a new cultural program that the federal government could instigate as part of their latest Economic Stimulus Package. Inspired by Roosevelt's New Deal cultural programs under the WPA (WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION) The Bridgeport WPA underscores the necessity for the support of artists and the idea of civic responsibility to the greater society. The projects unfold on the streets and on the walls of buildings in Bridgeport.

The accompanying exhibition Bridgeport WPA Poster Project examines the work by artists who heeded our call for works! Silk screened posters and maps to public works created for this project will be unveiled. And you will find them throughout the neighbohood.
Exhibition runs through May 2, 2009.

Curatorial Projects
In order to facilitate wider participation by visiting groups/guests we are providing project/exhibition spaces to curators, groups and collectives to share projects, initiatives, exhibitions. This year Material Exchange has curated and organized a Hyde Park/ Kenwood Version program. See April 23, April 25 and May 1 for more information about the Kind Ludd's Analog Arcade and other projects at Back Story Cafe. That's What She Said takes place as the Benton House April 25 and April 26. The Unbescheidene Angebote!! exhibit features work from around the US and Germany at Eastern Expansion gallery.

Free University (FREE U)
We are placing workshops, presentations, demonstrations, talks, lectures and classes within the framework of the Free University platform. Free University Programs will be presented during April 25 + April 26.

Chicago Art Parade
Version is excited to announce the first annual Chicago Art Parade. The Parade will take place on May 2, 2009 at 6pm in Chicago’s West Loop art’s district. The Chicago Art Parade is a point of combustion. A flash moment of synergy, prosperity, and participation amongst Chicago’s multi-faceted art communities. Doers, thinkers, subculture advocates and the mainstream masses alike will converge in an act of solidified networks. The most immodest proposals, creations, and collaborations will traverse Chicago’s disclosed and eclipsed spaces.

Live Musical Performances
Live performance is a strong component of the festival. Performances will take place throughout the city in clubs, Version spaces and other facilities. Musical Performances take place throughout the festival.

Performance/ Interventions/ Mobile Projects
Tours, public interventions, the Chicago Art Parade, creative disturbances in public space, initiatives and live art will be performed and acted throughout the festival.

Underground Multiplex (Film/Video)
Version typically screens experimental, documentary, animation, and shorts of all types. This year the Multiplex program is spread throughout festival sites and dates.