Call for African Applications: British Council Venice Biennale Delegation 2022 for Early to Mid-Career Visual Arts Curators

When is Application Deadline?

11th September 2022 12:00 midnight, BST

Tell Me About Award:

We are looking for applications by five early to mid-career visual arts curators from the UK and five early to mid-career visual arts curators from Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa or Zimbabwe whose practices are collaborative and draw from personal experience or interpretation of identity, gender, and race politics. Together, they will travel to the Venice Biennale for an enriching programme of activities and events in celebration of the historic number of black and African women artists and countries participating in this year’s Biennale for the first time such as Cameroon, Namibia and Uganda. They will explore the work of artists such as Golden Lion for Best National Participation winner Sonia Boyce, Alberta Whittle and Zineb Sedira, Golden Lion for Best Participant winner Simone Leigh, Acaye Kerunen and Na Chainkua Reindorf. The delegation will create opportunities to find synergies between curatorial practices in Sub-Saharan Africa and the UK around shared issues presented by these themes and made more visible in this year’s Biennale.
 
This delegation is part of the British Council Visual Arts Biennials Connect programme. The programme promotes cross-cultural and cross-border exchange and collaboration by providing opportunities for curators to connect, collaborate and build meaningful partnerships with colleagues across the globe and to nurture future engagement with British Council arts programmes and partners.

What Type of Award is this?

Short course

Who can apply?

he delegation is for early to mid-career visual arts curators whose practices are collaborative and draw from personal experience or interpretation of identity, gender, and race politics.

We are interested in applications from those who want to grow their curatorial practice in line with the themes of the delegation, who wish to expand their international networks amongst arts practitioners with similar interests and can demonstrate an interest to work collaboratively with the African and UK visual arts sectors. They may have a specific outcome they are hoping to achieve from this delegation, such as exhibition research, networking, or knowledge and skills building.

We recognise that the term ‘early to mid-career curator’ has many definitions and takes many forms. For the purposes of this delegation, we mean the following:

If you are early career, you will have at least one of the following:

• A relevant degree or relevant experience (instead of formal education) working in the arts sector either within an arts organisation or independently
• Experience working with artists on a commission, production, or programme as part of a wider exhibition or festival
• Contributed to an exhibition, public programme or arts publication through research or organisation and administrative support

If you are mid-career, you will have at least one of the following:

• Worked as a visual arts curator either within an arts organisation or independently
• Led on the curation of at least one high-profile exhibition that has received significant press coverage
• Undertook research/critical study on one of the themes of the delegation either for exhibition development or publication

Eligibility Requirements

Applicants do not have to hold a relevant degree or have had formal education, but they must:

• Be over 18 years old to apply
• Be based in the UK, but do not need to be a national of the UK OR
• Be based in Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, or Zimbabwe but do not need to be a national of these countries
• Not be in full or part-time formal education
• Be an early to mid-career curator as defined using the above definitions under “Who Can Apply”
• The programme will be delivered in English
• This programme is not for artists
• We will prioritise applications made by those who have not received support from British Council in the last two years

Access Needs

We encourage applications from D/deaf, disabled or neurodivergent individuals and will work collaboratively to meet access requirements. We also recognise that applicants may need to put in place unusual/atypical childcare arrangements (beyond those used routinely) and we will work collaboratively to meet requirements.

Please submit the format of application which is most accessible to you (either written or by video) using your support workers as necessary, to ensure we receive it in written or spoken English. Please email us at visual.arts@britishcouncil.org if you need additional support for your video submissions.

There is a section in the application where you can let us know about the kind of access support you may require during the delegation. It is important that you complete this section to provide us with the information we need to support you with access, should this be required.

All delegates will receive information that will help them support each other to fully participate in the programme.

Which Countries are Eligible?

Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa or Zimbabwe

Where will Award be Taken?

Venice, Italy

How Many Positions will be Given?

5

What is the Benefit of Award?

The delegation is fully funded and includes:

• A programme of networking, events and Pavilion visits
• Travel to and from airport
• Accommodation
• A daily stipend of £50 for meals/local travel
• Access budget to support atypical childcare needs, D/deaf, disabled or neurodivergent delegate needs

How Long is the Program?

• Thursday 24 November 2022 – Arrive in Venice
• Friday 25 November – Programme Day 1
• Saturday 26 November – Programme Day 2
• Sunday 27 November – Programme Day 3
• Monday 28 November – Depart Venice

Delegates interested in applying must be available for travel during the month of November to be considered. Note the above delegation dates may be subject to change

How to Apply for Program?

Please apply HERE

Applicants are expected to provide the following:

• Curriculum Vitae (No more than 2 A4 pages)
• A signed letter of support by someone you have worked with, or for professionally, but NOT a family member or friend (No longer than 1 A4 page)

And must answer the following questions:

1. Why do you want to participate in this delegation and how will it benefit your career development and connection with the African visual arts sector (for those applying from the UK) or the UK visual arts sector (from those applying from Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, or Zimbabwe) (Max 350 words)
2. Thinking of the themes of the delegation, which Venice Biennale artist participating this year inspires you and why? (Max 250 words)
3. Explain how your personal experience or interpretation of identity, gender and race politics informs your curatorial practice (Max 350 words)

For the above questions applicants may either submit written answers or a video.

If you are submitting a video application, the video must be:

• No more than five minutes maximum in length (The selection panel will only watch the first five minutes of any longer videos), submitted as an mp4 or mov file
• Delivered in English and/or with an interpreter for D/deaf sign language-using candidates
• Applicants must clearly state the question before their responses
• A clear recording – no distracting background noise etc, but does not need to be professionally recorded
• No more than 20MB (please note you may need to compress your file to do this – as long as it is a clear recording the production quality does not matter)

Applications will be considered incomplete without completion of the Equality and Diversity Monitoring questions, although these will not be used to inform any decision regarding your application.

If you have any questions, please contact: visual.arts@britishcouncil.org with the email subject heading: SSA UK Venice Delegation Open Call Question

Visit Award Webpage for Details