MODEM and FABER and launch a new collaboration with the announcement of an open call
Open call brochure: DOWNLOAD HERE
Apply here: APPLICATION FORM
Artists, designers and architects are invited to apply for As-Built, a collaborative programme of research, residencies and exhibitions focused on the construction and building materials industry in Romania and Hungary. The programme is presented by Design Signals — FABER cultural centre’s ongoing design-research initiative in Timișoara — in a new collaboration with MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art in Debrecen.
Following Design Signals’ previous investigations into the automotive, textile and chemical industries, As-Built will use design research to examine the construction and building materials industry’s labour, technologies, regulations, supply chains and materials — and the buildings and infrastructures these produce.
As-Built: Where plans meet reality
Construction is often presented as the execution of a plan. In practice, what gets built emerges through negotiation between design, regulation, finance, procurement, labour and material supply. Specifications change, budgets tighten, deadlines move and decisions accumulate. These are not incidental disruptions; they are part of how the industry operates. The passage from rendering, plan, investment or public announcement to building, road or neighbourhood materialises a layered set of political, economic and social values within the built environment.
An “as-built” drawing records the result of this process. Produced after construction, it documents what was completed, including changes made along the way. The difference between the original plan and the as-built record reveals where intentions were altered, which priorities prevailed and how responsibility was distributed. As-Built takes this gap as its central field of investigation.
The regions around Timișoara and Debrecen belong to an industrial landscape that has been repeatedly reorganised. Factories and infrastructures created for one economic system now operate within another. Ownership has changed, production has been retooled or reduced, and industrial sites have been repurposed as markets, regulations and technologies have shifted. At the same time, European policies are introducing new expectations for affordable, sustainable and inclusive living conditions. These ambitions encounter changing industrial networks, uneven labour markets, imported materials, rising land values and limited systems of maintenance.
Rather than treating these conditions as background, As-Built asks how they determine what gets built, where and by whom — and what happens after construction is complete. Through research in Timișoara and Debrecen, participants will engage with factories, construction sites, research centres and built environments. Projects will examine how decisions move through the construction process, whose knowledge is included or excluded, and where artistic, design and architectural practices might intervene — not only in new construction, but in what has already been built, left unfinished, adapted, repaired, standardised, maintained or abandoned.
Creative research: Tracing relations, opening possibilities
Art, design and architecture are understood as forms of research: ways of tracing how production, infrastructure and regulation shape a place. Rather than approaching the construction and building materials industry with a predefined problem or solution, As-Built invites participants to follow the materials, infrastructures, decisions and forms of expertise through which it operates, asking how they connect — and where those connections break down. The research is not an end in itself: each participant will develop it into an original applied project.
This approach creates room to notice the needs and values that industrial production — shaped by capital and function — does not always accommodate. As-Built starts from the gap between what an industry is set up to do and what a place, a worker, or an ecology actually needs. Creative research can bring the priorities embedded in these systems into view and explore where they might be questioned, stretched, or changed.
As-Built invites artists, designers and architects to work with the FABER and MODEM teams in Timișoara, Debrecen and their surrounding regions. Through site visits, conversations, documentation, material experimentation and collaboration, participants will investigate the realities of the construction and building materials industry, bring overlooked knowledge into view, and build connections between people and institutions that do not usually work together.
Who can apply
Emerging and established artists, designers and architects may apply individually or as collectives. We welcome visual, spatial, material, digital and research-led practices, including moving image, sculpture, sound, publishing, architectural research, social practice and industrial design.
Applicants should propose a thematic interest within the construction and building materials industry and explain how they would investigate it through their creative practice.
Participation programmes and outcomes
Ten practitioners will be selected: five for Timișoara and five for Debrecen. Each city will host three international and two regional participants. The programme provides a fee which includes production and residency budgets, with dates agreed between the selected participants, curators and host institutions.
There are two programmes through which designers, artists and architects can participate in As-Built:
The Residency Program will select six international practitioners: three for Debrecen and three for Timișoara. The participants will ground their proposals in the local contexts of Timișoara or Debrecen, connecting regional construction realities to broader contemporary questions.
The Small Institutional Cooperation Program will select four regional practitioners to collaborate with smaller institutions: two in Hungary and two in Romania. The participants will develop interventions connected to specific sites identified during the research process. These works will be presented on site as well as in the group exhibitions.
FABER and MODEM will connect all participants with factories, researchers, construction companies, workshops, archives, institutions, and sites of construction, demolition or urban transformation. Projects may involve fieldwork, interviews, site visits, material testing and collaboration with local partners.
All ten projects will be presented in an exhibition at FABER in autumn 2027 and MODEM in winter 2028.
APPLY HERE: APPLICATION FORM
Selection Calendar
Application deadline: 27 September 2026
Interview invitations: by 1 October 2026
Interviews: 5–9 October 2026
Final selection: 12 October 2026
Participants will be selected by Martina Muzi, curator of Design Signals at FABER, and Krisztián Gábor Török, curator at MODEM. The selection will be made considering the criteria presented in the proposal guideline, in two phases: 1. Selection for interview; 2. Final selection of participants.
Proposal Guidelines
We are interested in proposals that approach construction and building materials as the outcome of a much longer process. Before anything is built, land is acquired, materials are extracted and transported, labour is organised, finance is secured, and regulations determine what is possible. Once completed, buildings and infrastructures continue to be occupied, adapted, maintained or demolished. Proposals might locate themselves at any point within this process and ask how art, design and architecture can engage with the decisions that shape construction, bringing into view values and interests that dominant industry priorities tend to exclude.
A proposal should begin with a specific site, material, technique, worker, machine, regulation or form of expertise. This starting point should open onto the wider relationships that surround it. Applicants are encouraged to allow their initial questions and methods to develop through the people, places and processes they encounter during the residency. Prior knowledge of Timișoara, Debrecen or their surrounding regions is not required, but applicants should demonstrate an interest in engaging with one of these contexts during the programme.
Proposals should be:
Specific: Grounded in a real construction material, site, process, technology, labour condition, market logic or social urgency.
Methodologically clear: Explaining how their research will be conducted and how it will become an artistic, design or spatial project, through a multidisciplinary methodology and a variety of approaches, tools, techniques, media or materials
Experimental: Curious, inventive and open to testing methods across art, design, architecture, industry and research.
Systemically informed: Attentive to the actors, infrastructures and markets that shape the construction and building materials industry.
Regionally connected: Related to Debrecen, Timișoara, Hungary, Romania or the wider region. This connection may be developed during the residency.
Applicants of the Small Institutional Cooperation Program should also be open to developing an intervention connected to a specific construction-industry site or condition. The site does not need to be confirmed when applying.
These are the criteria the curators will use to select the participants. Each of the five criteria, plus one additional criterion, carries equal weight, for a total score of 100 points.
Application guidelines
Complete the online application form and upload one 10-page PDF in English, with a maximum file size of 10 MB. Name the file name_surname.pdf.
Page 1 | Profile and motivation
Applicant name(s) and current location
Short biography (maximum 200 words)
Website or online portfolio
Motivation letter describing your current practice, the relevance of the programme to your work, and why you want to participate (maximum 400 words)
Pages 2–3 | Thematic investigation
Describe your interest in the construction and building materials industry and its connection to As-Built (maximum 400 words). Include no more than five images.
Ground the proposal in real contexts: news, artefacts, materials, techniques, technologies, places, people, practices, trades or forms of production. Add sources, citations, maps or documentation where relevant.
Pages 4–5 | Research and creative approach
Describe your proposed research and artistic, design or spatial approach (maximum 400 words).
Explain which research methods you will use and how the research might develop through the tools, techniques, media and materials of your practice. State your availability for travel, field research, the residency and exhibition installation.
Pages 6–9 | Portfolio
Present previous work relevant to your proposal. Include images, captions and dates. You may add links for further context.
Page 10 | CV
Include a concise personal or professional CV.
APPLY HERE: APPLICATION FORM
About Design Signals / FABER
Design Signals is a long-term programme initiated by FABER and curated by Martina Muzi. Working from Timișoara’s industrial landscape, it brings designers, researchers, institutions and companies together to investigate relationships between contemporary design, industry and technology. Each edition focuses on a strategic sector: automotive in 2023, textiles in 2024, chemicals in 2025, agriculture in 2026 and construction in 2027. Research is developed through exhibitions, workshops and long-term partnerships.
The programme is based at FABER, an independent cultural centre established in 2017 by Timișoara-based entrepreneurs working across architecture, IT and the sociocultural sector.
About Martina Muzi
Martina Muzi is a designer, curator and educator whose work examines design through material logistics, geopolitical cultures and social structures. She has curated Design Signals at FABER since 2022 and leads the BA programme Studio Technogeographies at Design Academy Eindhoven. In 2026, she is co-curator of the Rotterdam Architecture Biennale, Systems of Support, and curator of BIO 29: Soft Fields, the 29th Biennial of Design organised by the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO). Since 2024, she has also curated ENTRATE, a multi-year programme at MAXXI in Rome. Her work has been presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Vitra Design Museum, Istanbul Biennial, MAAT Museum and M+ Museum of Visual Culture.
About Krisztián Gábor Török
Krisztián Gábor Török is a Budapest-based curator and art writer whose practice explores ecological imaginaries, situated knowledge, and the politics of memory and place through socially engaged and experimental exhibition formats. He has been a curator at MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Art since 2022, where he developed Learning from Nature? — Botany, an exhibition and residency project featuring ten new commissions. Since 2025, he has also curated the MODEM AIR programme. His international projects include Breaking the Course of the European Boomerang at Pragovka Gallery in Prague and Index in Stockholm. He has participated in programmes at Ujazdowski Castle CCA, UNIDEE Biella and the Curators Workshop of the 12th Berlin Biennale.