Cocreation Fund: 13 selected projects

District09 and the City of Ghent are pleased to be able to distribute 200,000 euros to 13 projects retained within the Cocreation Fund of Collections of Ghent.

The call for proposals lead to a total of 36 fascinating and diverse submissions.

One of the conditions for receiving financial support between 2,000 and 20,000 euros per project was that the applicant should make use, in a technological or creative way, of the online heritage data of Collections of Ghent.

Of the 36 applicants, 7 projects were submitted under the technological section and 29 projects under the creative section. Unfortunately the budget was not sufficient to honour all projects.

Together with a jury, District09 and the City of Ghent selected 13 projects that will receive financial support to further develop their project in the coming year. The results of the projects developed or created with the resources of the Cocreation Fund will be presented at the final festival of the Collections of Ghent late June 2023.

The selected projects are:

• Interactive photobooth: "Which famous Gentenaar will you become?" - Gener8.ai (Skyhaus BV)
  A physical photobooth that uses artificial intelligence to allow visitors to face swap with portraits from the cultural heritage collections.

• Collage of Ghent - Ctrl alt vzw
  With the help of artificial intelligence all images from the collection are annotated so that content associations can be made through language analysis. Through visualization, the visitor will be able to choose a favorite piece from the collection and add it to a broader collage.

• LINKED ARTeveldestad - imec - IDLab vzw
  The development of a personalized navigation app that takes you along works of art in museums and fascinating places in the city.

• The role of the WC in Ghent - Crashlab
  An installation that generates unique toilet rolls.

• Once upon AI - Nerdlab vzw
  Via GPT-3 and together with a community creating stories based on pieces from the collection.

• Documentary 'Straffe straten' - Koos Fransen / STR.AAT
  An expansion of the digital collection with gritty images and stories about everyday life in our streets in Ghent, past and present

• Podcast Schroot / Hoop - De Zieke Steur
  10 seemingly replaceable and functional objects are saved from the scrap heap by capturing their story, and their 'soul'.

• Performance Ruimtegruis - Mario Matthys
  Collection pieces literally come to life through actors. The performance will be staged in 10 districts of Ghent.

• RE-MIX COLLECTION - M.USE Belgium
  4 visual artists invite children and young people from different schools to explore the digital heritage together in a playful, experiential way and to remix it with their own inspirations from their environment. In this way they will come up with new creations, which will result in various exhibition formats.

• 1000 jaar Gentsekoop - Gentsekoop
  25 local traders from Ghent discover a personalized and remarkable story that links cultural heritage (objects) from the Collection with their business, premises and/or neighborhood, and thus with the local economy in our city.

• Re-Use It - Mesh vzw
  Re-Use It selects objects from the Collection, samples patterns in vector format, redraws parts of the objects and brews color palettes from this eclectic database.

• Shopping center Malem - Vroemvroem
  In a creative way, the old Malem with its many stores will be evoked. The current residents will be actively involved and be a unifying factor. Young and old, Flemish and non-Flemish inhabitants will be connected in this common heritage project.

• Documentary about the textile industry - IQRA
  Stories and testimonies of the Moroccan pioneers in the textile industry are given a place within Ghent's migration and textile history.