What we will never answer to you:

  • Open-mindedness
We are not afraid of meeting new artists, not afraid of collaborating with people we don't know, who are from another country, possessing a different cultural and ideological background, speaking a different artistic language. We are looking after it! More you are different, the more we like you! Contact us!
  • Trust
We don't only pretend to be "risk-takers", but actually we are!  No matter if we don't know each other, let's have a call, let's meet!
  • Curiosity
Looking after out-of-the-box aesthetics, original ideas, marginal artistic forms and non-conventional propositions is not just a way of speaking, it is not just about marketing. We are really looking for anti-canonical proposals, alternative and critical thinkers who challenges mainstream contemporary trends and aesthetics.​ You have an unusual project in your mind? You want to create something which challenges artistic conventions and traditional canons, confront standards and beauty norms? You want to go against rules and systems in which you are socialized and familiarized with? Take the path of the unknown, the non-conform, the “other”, the unfamiliar, the uncanny? Contact us, we want to hear about!​​

What we will never imagine:

  • Respect
Art making, creating, imagining, thinking is a job, and artists have to be paid. No discussion.
A suggestion for artists: unpaid propositions are not "opportunities". Just tell them that slavery is over, then block and report them. Making people working for free is called abuse and exploitation. Doing this under the name of art is shameful.
A suggestion for structures who have great ideas but no budget for paying the artists: don't make the project, get the money first.
  • Equality, parity
​Whatever your gender, age, professional experience or educational background, whatever if you are dancer, musician or technician, choreographer or cleaner, Gray Box pays equally every collaborator. Every team member receives the same hourly fee.
  • Transparency
Each project budget is an open Excel sheet, shared with everyone who is part of it.

How we will never work:

  • Horizontality
During the creation process, all project members have the opportunity to work in a totally horizontal, non hierarchical, safe, judgement-free environment, where they can express themselves most honestly while receiving support, knowledge and tools to grow confidence, accentuate their uniqueness, develop originality and out-of-the-box thinking.
  • Personal development
Dancers and performers are encouraged to take part in the creative process, collaborate closely with the maker, liberate themselves from their fears, transgress their boundaries, go beyond their limits and push themselves out of their comfort zone.
  • Assertion
Creatives, choreographers, makers, performers, dancers, visual artists, musicians, designers we work with are asked not to looking for what looks good, what’s nice, what will the audience like, how will professionals react, what will the others think about, but to do what they personally think coherent, justified and meaningful. They are constantly encouraged to look for the risky, the unusual, the unknown, the weird, the uncanny. Do not throw away their "strange" ideas, but try them one by one. To overcome barriers, break rules.
  • Care
Let's care about each other. Let's keep in touch. Let's answer the e-mails. Let's interact and communicate, let's exchange knowledge, tools, experiences and diverse co-creation and collaboration practices. Let's meet, let's gather, let's learn and teach each other, let's discuss, let's dream. Let's be human.

How we will never speak:

  • Generosity
Free yourself from your class, from your position, from your social status! Be humble, simple and generous. Speak as everyone can understand. Stop wanting to prove yourself to the art world, to be validated with an institution, stop using bullshit terminologies, stop saying empty words, stop using references just because it is "required". Avoid the eliteness, provide an inclusive experience for all of us.
  • Courage
Stop being manipulated by the market, stop creating for open calls, stop adapting your art, stop responding to trends. Rather challenge the traditional hierarchy of genres and techniques, question normative curatorial discourses, defy dominant cultural values and ideologies. Express criticism of the academy and those cultural actors and institutions who hold themselves up as opinion leaders of our aesthetic values and standard‐bearers of our collective cultural heritage.​​ Resist, defy, revolt!

Cool List:

Authentic, sincere, generous, engaged and original initiatives you should hear about, meaningful and out-of-the-box structures you should check:
A collaborative conception and work space for the arts , is conceived as an “Artist Run Space”: theFREIRAUM, initiated and operated by the Ben J. Riepe Company, is located at Engelbertstraße 13 and is available to artists and their cooperation partners from administration, project management, dramaturgy or technology as well as scientists and advanced students with interfaces to the arts for work stays free of charge to disposal.
  • KEM (collective)
Feminist and queer sound, performance, choreography, critical intimacy and collectivity. Based in Warsaw, Poland. A free of charge nomadic, experimental, trans-disciplinary art school and fight club at the same time, based on questioning, criticizing, protesting, resisting and defying. Composed of thematic classes, the program introduces the concepts of oppression, domination, exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness and violence from a critical feminist perspective.
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