Curious? Festival of Futures Powered by the Knowledge Quarter

/in , /by

FESTIVAL BRIEF

Building on the amazing success of Curious? 2015, King’s Cross and the Knowledge Quarter will once again come together to produce a content rich festival that will showcase the Knowledge Quarter and King’s Cross. King’s Cross will host a one-day long learning and knowledge-focused festival, encouraging and enabling partnerships and collaborations from across the Knowledge Quarter. The event will take place across the whole site, including Granary Square and Lewis Cubitt Square, and with happenings in other parts of the site.

Similar to last year, there will be a focus on learning and knowledge, while ensuring an element of theatricality, fun and spectacle. The festival will be entertaining as well as educational, and there will be content to appeal to all ages. This year the festival will be organised around three main sectors: we will see the development of Curious Kids! which will focus on content that is mainly aimed at children; The Curious? main programme will focus more on content that is suitable for all audiences – with more of an emphasis on content appropriate for adults; and Curious Bites will offer bite-sized presentations of a varied, interesting content.

The driving force of the programme is still knowledge – particularly the amazing array of different manifestations of knowledge encompassed by the Knowledge Quarter member organisations.

2016 THEME

The initial theme for this year’s Curious? is Futures.

From envisaging the future of King’s Cross and the Knowledge Quarter, through breakthrough research and tech developments, to picturing communities of the future (both near and far futures) and exploring what instigating partnerships could be formed – we would like to invite KQ partners to reflect on what these different Futures could look like.

This event hopes to be a platform, or rather, the laboratory where to test things out and make new ideas happen. This could be a digital project for a dance company, a community orchestra, impacts that your organisation will have on local community, engagement programmes, tech inspired learning, art and retail… Hopefully by looking ahead, the possibilities will be endless.

CURATION

The festival will hold a slightly different format this year for the main programme, with an open call for projects to all KQ partners. Proposals will be curated, giving emphasis on new / experimental content, relevance to the theme and collaboration between partners – such as libraries combining content with dance schools, research working with artists, artists working with halls of residents and schools – the combinations can be of any choice, and it is not essential to collaborate if the idea is strong enough on its own.

All submissions will be reviewed by the Curious? festival curation committee, comprised of Argent and Knowledge Quarter representatives, as well as our partner creative production agency, Produce UK, and the most outstanding examples of collaboration, creative content, spectacle and engagement will make up the 2016 programme.

Other opportunities for partners to take part: the Curious? Bites programme, a series of short and sweet presentations showcasing the best of exciting Knowledge Quarter work and ideas, and the Curious? Kids! programme.

The idea is that Curious? becomes an annual programme, so there is also an opportunity for KQ partners to showcase their work in a future edition of Curious?

OPTIONS FOR PARTICIPATION

1) Curious? Main programme. A series of events that can engage older and family audiences, with interactive elements, creative performances, amazing displays, and fun partnerships. The festival aims to select between 10-15 proposals for this section.
2) Curious? Kids. An event that looks to engage children with content around the idea of Futures (could be experiments, interactive performances, or fun experiences). Around 5-8 projects will be selected for this section.
3) Curious? Bites. Short, dynamic, image rich presentations (not dissimilar to TED talks, around 10-15mins duration) on latest research and forward thinking ideas for KQ partners. Around 20 talks.

CONTENT PROFORMA

All Knowledge Quarter partners are invited to submit proposals for any of the festival programmes.
Please complete the content proforma with as much detail as possible and return to Jodie Eastwood by 2nd May 2016.