With "Opening Our Closed Shops", the Allianz Cultural Foundation, together with Akademie Schloss Solitude, encourages artistic and literary exchange between five cultural institutions in Eastern and Western Europe. Through various artistic encounters and artist-in-residence programs, the basis for transnational networks should be firmly established and the isolation of creative artists in Eastern Europe overcome.

Every year, five Akademie Schloss Solitude-artists spend three months in a partner city, while five artists from corresponding institutions spend the same amount of time living and working in the Akademie Schloss Solitude. Further, one artist of each partner institution has the opportunity to travel to a partner city, in order to spend three months of living and working there.

Alicja Karska and Alexandra Went, both visual artists from Poland, the architecture-theoretican Dubravka Sekulic from Serbia, the writer István László Geher from Hungary, the visual artist Ivan Moudov from Bulgaria, the writer Dan Sociu from Romania, Goran Radovanovic from Novi Sad and Kamen Stoyanov were the guests at the Solitude Academy in 2008. In return, the following artists of the Akademie Schloss Solitude went to the partner organisations for three months: Antonia Lotz, a German curator, went to Warsaw, Kaiwan Mehta und Ulrike Syha went to Budapest. The polish visual artist Karol Radziszewski spent November 2008 at kuda.org in Novi Sad.

During their study period abroad, the creative artists are expected to acquaint themselves with the local art scene and with new work-related contexts. In addition, the six participating institutions hold a curatorsí meeting for the planning and implementation of mutual projects.

Project duration: 2008 - 2010

Project venue: Stuttgart, Budapest, Bukarest, Novi Sad, Sofia, Warsaw

Project partner: Akademie Schloss Solitude Stuttgart; Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle (Warschau); Jozsef Attila Circle (Budapest); Inter Space Media Art Centre (Sofia); Kuda.org (Novi Sad)