SHAPE+

The platform for innovative music and interdisciplinary art, known first as SHAPE and later as SHAPE+, had been active for more than a decade.
While the individual partner festivals and venues will continue to develop new initiatives, SHAPE+ is reaching its conclusion at the end of December 2025.
The project has been co-funded by the European Union, in its last years also by Pro Helvetia.
SHAPE+ fostered exceptional emerging talent, connecting them to local communities and audiences through collaborative residencies, commissioned artworks, performances, and large artist meet-ups accompanied by a discourse program. The approach to artist selection has been diverse, spanned many genres of modern music and embraced interdisciplinarity.
Across its ten years of activity, SHAPE facilitated the careers of 676 innovative artists, and is thankful to them for their trust and participation. The creators of SHAPE owe much gratitude also to the core 18 adventurous music festivals of the platform, as well as external partner organizations, media partners, and participating entities from previous versions of the project.
The venues and audiences across Europe and beyond were equally important in making the project possible through their openness, enthusiasm, and interest in forward thinking music and sound.
At the time of this announcement, these are the member organizations of SHAPE+:

• Construction Festival (Dnipro, Ukraine)
• CTM Festival (Berlin, Germany)
• Full of Lava (Bern, Switzerland)
• INTONAL Festival (Malmö, Sweden)
• Les Siestes Électroniques (Paris, France)
• MeetFactory (Prague, Czech Republic)
• Mutant Radio (Tbilisi, Georgia)
• ORF / musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst (Graz, Austria)
• OUT.FEST (Barreiro, Portugal)
• Polja (Šutci, Serbia)
• Rewire (The Hague, Netherlands)
• Rokolectiv Festival (Bucharest, Romania)
• schiev (Brussels, Belgium)
• Skaņu Mežs (Riga, Latvia)
• SONICA Festival (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
• Terraforma Festival (Milan, Italy)
• UH Fest (Budapest, Hungary)
• Unsound (Kraków, Poland)

A full list of SHAPE artists from each year of the project can be found here.

SHAPE+ is artist-oriented, and, every year, it creates a selection of exceptional emerging talent via open call and curatorial voting, to then foster their careers with performance invitations, collaborative residencies, commissions, seminars and networking events. SHAPE+ consists of non-profit venues and festivals, and is co-funded by the European Union and, as of July 2024, Pro Helvetia.

In 2024, SHAPE+ consists of 18 partners in 18 countries with plans for further expansion, while adopting an interdisciplinary approach and committing to social and environmental awareness.

SHAPE+ is a three-year initiative co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

SHAPE+ has nominated the following Swiss artists in 2024:
Elischa Heller (CH)
Junge Eko (CH)
Julian Sartorius (CH)

The member festivals and art centres of SHAPE+ are:
CTM Festival, Berlin, DE
Construction, Dnipro, UA
Full Of Lava, Bern, CH
Intonal, Malmö, SE
Les siestes électroniques, Toulouse, FR
MeetFactory, Prague, CZ
Mutant Radio, Tbilisi, GE
musikprotokoll im steirischen herbst/ORF, Graz, AT
Polja, Belanovica, RS
OUT.RA, Barreiro, PT
rewire, The Hague, NL
Rokolectiv, Bucharest, RO
schiev, Brussels, BE
Skaņu Mežs, Riga, LV
Sonica/MoTAl, Ljubljana, SI
Terraforma, Milan, IT
UH Fest, Budapest, HU
Unsound, Krakow, P

SHAPE+ platform for innovative music and interdisciplinary art, co-funded by the European Union and Pro Helvetia, has announced showcases in collaboration with ZVUK (Almaty, Kazakhstan) and DKC Incel (Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina), both occurring on June 21.

These are the last two events in the platform’s series of 5 showcases outside of the EU: other events include Jogja Noise Bombing (Indonesia), JellyZone (Egypt) and Cafe OTO (United Kingdom).

Follow this link for more info.