This is an invitation for an open call for content creators (journalists, influencers, communicators) or artists of all practices, and now seems like a great time for it. This is the third year when we open the discussion about the tension born out of simultaneously being a creator and one’s own communicator and social media manager, and about the need to find a balance between the time spent creating an artwork, or photo-video content, or writing an article or a press release, and the time spent on social media trying to reach one’s audience.
In the Share, Tag or Dye project we aim to create two different kinds of social networks – a global support network of artists and creators which can find out about each other’s work without fighting the social media algorithm, and an analogue social media feed, that brings the content promoted online back to an offline photography installation.
I have attached a document with more details about the project, as well as a photo gallery of the installation – it is an experience to be inside it! 🙂 And, if you ever promoted one of your articles on social media, I would love to see it in this year’s edition! Also, if you know others that would be interested in being part of our network, It would be amazing if you could pass them on this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScGN_1anSRVhqguSz7vd3hNIbP-LyIvuhfjcBs29zlinuiLOw/viewform
Share, Tag or Dye
Program-context aimed at improving an applied and decentralized dialogue between artists, other cultural agents and the public, while questioning relevant issues in the online-offline circuit. Share, Tag or Dye is a program-context for coagulating the dialogue between Romanian and international artists, respectively between them, other cultural agents and the general public, through an online-offline hybrid structure, involving both the professional and amateur public, along with the general public, in the sustainable development of contemporary art by questioning issues related to the shaky established structures of the cultural scene, which require awareness, transparency and redefinition. 
The program specifically aims to: question the self-promotion methods of artists, who have to invest far more time in social media compared to the time actually invested in research and artistic productionquestion social media as a medium of consumption for artistic work – to what extent can the contemporary small screen reproduce the complexity of a work of art?
overturn the open-call-type structure by cancelling the selection process, in which a major proportion of those registered are usually refused for reasons that do not always relate to the quality of their proposals. Thus, the international open call structure becomes a global and decentralised transdisciplinary collaboration platform materialise the links received from all contributors in an installation that brings into the physical environment of an exhibition space works of art (self)promoted online through social media, but technologically appropriated through a visual restructuring based on a sustainable photographic technique – how does a digitally-native or digitised image change when it is brought from the online into the tangible by means of a technique with 180 history (e.g. cyanotype – photographic technique based on ferrous salts sensitive to the UV spectrum). Equally, how does the way the public navigate an exhibition space change when technology conditions their path differently than they are used to?
Share, Tag or Dye takes place in annual editions, expanding the installation, respectively the collaborative network, slowly and patiently, into an ever growing decentralized international collective along with a network of partners and organisations that actively participate in changing the cultural sector worldwide… 
Share, Tag or Dye, between content creation and social media promotion
How can one find a balance between mastering communication strategies, acquiring SEO knowledge and dueling opaque social media algorithms, from Instagram to Facebook, from Tik-Tok to Reddit, which are all necessary in order to reach one’s public, and the actual activity required to create a concept or a product? This is one of the questions which drove the members of Allkimik Photography Association and Marginal Cultural Association to create the project Share, Tag or Dye, in the year 2022. Now at its third edition, the project continues to explore the tensions between being a creator, and being one’s own social media promoter, while also preserving another unique aspect of the endeavor: the call for submissions is truly open, with the deadline for applications continuing to be the only criterion for selection. Those interested can apply by filling out this form.
200 works which have been promoted by content creators (designers, writers, journalists, influencers, organizers of online and offline classes and events), and professional and amateur artists on their respective social media channels were included in the first edition of the project, in an exhibition hosted by five art galleries in Romania and abroad. In 2023, the team returned with Share, Tag or Dye (Again), a project which had 300 submissions consisting of promotional social media posts, which they turned into a sort of analogue social media feed, through the photographic technique of cyanotype printing, on large-scale textile materials, which were then exhibited in multiple art spaces throughout Romania and Europe.
This year, the exhibition resulting from the submitted social media posts will be open to the public at the Experimental Photo Festival 2024 in Barcelona, Spain, but also at the Sepsi Tabakó Festival in Sfântu Gheorghe, and Photo Trends Festival, in 2 Mai. This edition’s journey will end with an exhibition in Bucharest, in September. 
Besides exploring the extent to which our daily screens can place us in contact with the works, products and services which we might need and which might interest us, Share, Tag or Dye is also an invitation to relate to almost-forgotten photographic techniques. Among these, cyanotype and anthotype, while the project team also attempts to lead to innovations in photography, via their 2023 collaboration with the National Institute for Research and Development for Textiles and Leather, together with Dr. Elena Badea, searching for ways to adapt cyanotype printing on a series of sustainable materials developed by the institute.
In the context of democratization of access to artistic content and beyond, and of the ways in which interested audiences may consume said content, the Share, Tag or Dye project tackles fresh issues, searches for solutions anchored in context, and opens the door to unmediated participation within a forum of ideas which creates a global community, both within and without social media.
Anca Spiridon
PR Specialist
