As mentioned in The Guardian, Dr. Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian’s latest project Tour de Moon has been commissioned by Unboxed Festival 2022, and we’re delighted to announce that two of our staff members, Tatevik Ayvazyan and Olivia Melkonian, are on the Advisory Board. The Board supports the project in selecting open calls to commission projects and participate in online classes aimed at skill-sharing, idea building and fund sourcing.
“Tour de Moon is a cosmic adventure, a large-scale public festival of immersive experiences and live events developed in collaboration with our “universal satellite”: the Moon, seen as a character, a landscape and a prompt for radical imagination. The festival, composed of 8 programming strands, aims to reach millions of visitors across the UK and the world in 2022, through live and virtual experiences, supporting youth, nightlife creators, scientists and digital creators through cooperation. With Tour de Moon, we seek new beginnings, to empower others to create, to initiate, to innovate with new thinking and pluralistic practices so that history does not repeat itself on and beyond Earth.”
Tour de Moon is calling young people aged 18-25 to get involved. Committed to redistribute wealth through their Bursary Scheme - with funds received from the grant - bursaries range from £100 to £25,000 with a range of opportunities to push your practice and have your work showcased in Tour de Moon (and to the Moon!). Whether you want to write, sing, speak or create, there is bound to be something for you to do during Tour de Moon. The initiative has also secured collaborations with the SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute, NASA SSERVI (Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute), the African Astronomical Society, Ghana Planetarium, NightTime Industries Association, and many other international institutions and youths clubs alongside the bursaries to support the development of global cooperative efforts beyond borders.
Visit Tour de Moon’s website to apply by 6 January 2022.