Urban Festival UIT announces an open call for the 2025 festival installations, themed ‘Playful City’. The open call is mostly aimed at city-loving students of art and architecture, but everyone interested in experimenting with installation in public space is welcome to participate.
Through this installation programme, the festival explores how playful interventions shape our relationship with urban space, encourage social interaction, and inspire citizens to co-create a unique and engaging urban environment.
The challenge for artists is to transform ordinary or overlooked places into playful ones and create opportunities for strangers to meet through play. Participants are free to repurpose existing elements of the city or create entirely new structures. The focus can be on the broader urban population or specific groups such as seniors, neighbours, skateboarders, cyclists, dog walkers, etc.
The call is primarily aimed at students of architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, installation art, sculpture, and design, but other urban space enthusiasts are also welcome to participate.
The project format is a temporary installation in a public space. The approach is free and can be interdisciplinary, but it must be considered that the work should be exhibited in the public space of Tartu (Estonia) for five festival days (13–17 August 2025). The installation should engage the audience in some way or invite them to participate. The festival encourages thinking about recycled materials and other environmentally friendly solutions.
The festival offers a fee (1,500 EUR per project) and covers production costs (up to 1,500 EUR per project), as well as transportation and accommodation expenses. Projects from both Estonia and Europe are welcome. The festival is supported by the City of Tartu and the Estonian Cultural Endowment.
