OPEN CALL for Marginal Storytellers >>> The Urban Green Blueprint

OPEN CALL for Marginal Storytellers >>> The Urban Green Blueprint

 

We seek 3 creators (journalists, storytellers, videographers, or content producers) to join The Urban Green Blueprint, a transdisciplinary research project exploring the relationship between small urban green spaces and city inhabitants. The goal is to document the project’s evolution through a personal lens, turning raw research and field-data into engaging narratives and public-facing knowledge.

Application form: https://forms.gle/RtngwyeuKBNfVaFw6

Overview

The Urban Green Blueprint explores the vital role of “block gardens” as critical centers for ecosystem and human health. Developed by Marginal in partnership with the Institute of Biology Bucharest, the project transforms scientific data into interactive artistic experiences, aiming to inspire community action and support green policy-making.

We are looking for 3 curious minds to document the dialogue between our team of 4 artists (Andrei Raicu, Lorena Cocora, Sabina Suru, Westley Hennigh-Palermo) and 4 researchers (Roxana Nicoară, Andreea Ciobotă, Mihaela Ciobotă, Mihai Stoica). We aim to move beyond traditional archiving and toward process journalism—capturing the raw, subjective, and often invisible journey of transdisciplinary collaboration.

Apply until May 15th: https://forms.gle/RtngwyeuKBNfVaFw6

Research Context

Urban green spaces in Romania, often maintained by passionate residents, face challenges like “landscape amnesia” and a lack of public engagement in scientific research. The project investigates concepts such as dark diversity (species compatible with an ecosystem but absent due to anthropogenic reasons) and the more-than-human perspective on urban living. By shadowing researchers in botanical and ornithological field work, the selected creators will document how scientific rigor meets artistic intuition to address the climate crisis at a local scale.

Collaboration format

The documentation process will take place between May and August 2026, following the project’s key stages:

• Immersion & Field Work: Shadowing artists and researchers during site visits to block gardens and laboratories.
• Development: Creating engaging content (video, audio, or text) that reflects the evolution of the artistic prototypes.
• Delivery: Final materials are expected by August 15, 2026*, to be showcased alongside the project’s public interventions.
  

Participant Profile

We are looking for individuals with a background in journalism, communication, researchers or visual arts, who have a keen interest in environmental issues and interdisciplinary storytelling. We are not looking for a technical archive, but for subjective and personal lenses that can translate the complex art-science dialogue into engaging narratives. We encourage you to propose your own way of communicating these processes, moving beyond simple data visualization towards knowledge production.

Possible directions include:

• Gonzo & Process Journalism: Unfiltered field diaries or first-person essays that document the lived experience of the collaboration. We are interested in the “behind the scenes” of the research—from the raw interactions, capturing how dark diversity or waste theories are debated and felt.
• Ecomediality & Social Storytelling: Native video content (Reels/Video-journals) that explores the relationship between city inhabitants and their gardens. You can document the scientists’ field work or the artists’ experiments, transforming technical data into high-impact micro-documentaries about our more-than-human neighbors.
• Visual Narratives & Photo-reporting: Investigative photography or visual essays that capture the hybrid aesthetics of the project. Focus on making the invisible visible—from the fragility of endemic species to the way technology mediates our perception of the urban landscape.
• Audio Diaries & Sensory Archives: Podcasts or “raw” interviews taken on-site, in the gardens or during the development of sound installations. We seek to capture the live dialogue between researchers and artists as they navigate ecological complexity and the challenges of landscape amnesia.

 

How to apply

To apply, please fill in the application form, providing:

1. A short bio/CV highlighting your previous experience.
2. A brief proposal describing your chosen format and how you envision documenting the project – You can propose a project that follows a single artist’s journey, a specific research duo (artist-scientist), or creates a broader narrative across multiple participants.
3. A 1-minute video introduction – giving you the chance to put a face to the proposal and tell us what makes your perspective engaging and why you want to join this project.

What we provide

1. Financial support: A fee of 3.000 LEI (before taxes);
2. Full access: Direct contact with the artists, researchers, and scientific infrastructure (Institute of Biology, field sites;
3. Mentorship: Support from the Marginal team

 

The selected artist will be announced by May 20, 2026.

If you have questions about the call, please send an email to: change@marginal.ro.

*If the proposed documentation project is long-term and requires extended observation, the final delivery can be extended until the end of October, provided that a significant partial delivery is completed by August 15.