WSA Opportunities

We are inviting proposals for new ways of remembering events, people and identities in the public realm.

This competition forms an integral part of the Immortalised season, which aims to encourage new thinking around the production, use and appearance of monuments and memorials in public life.

2018 is a particularly significant year for anniversaries in England, with events up and down the country commemorating the end of the First World War and the victory of the Votes for Women campaign. New statues, plaques and memorials are planned to mark these important historical moments, helping bring to the surface previously overlooked stories and individuals. In response – and recognising that artists, architects and designers have always played a key role in shaping our commemorative landscape – we want to explore alternative approaches to public memory in England. What will the monument of the future look like, and who or what should it remember?

In Britain, artists such as Jeremy Deller and Rachel Whiteread have long questioned the form and function of our commemorative practices, while the Fourth Plinth in London has provided a highly visible platform for new approaches to public sculpture. This competition aims to encourage wider participation in such thinking, as well as opening up the debate around who or what should be ‘immortalised’ today.

The ten successful applications will receive £2,000 to develop their proposals for display in the Immortalised exhibition and will be invited to the exhibition opening in September 2018.

 

How to enter the competition

To enter the competition, please download the competition pack and submit your proposal following the terms and conditions of the competition. There is no entry fee for this competition and the submission deadline is 5pm on Monday 30 April.

This is a two-stage competition. From this initial open call, ten submissions will be selected to develop their ideas for display in the Immortalised exhibition, due to open in London in September 2018. Depending on the proposal, these may be 1:1, scaled down, or a representation of the imagined final work. The selected submissions will represent each of our nine regions, plus one for stories that are of national significance. The regional selection will be based on the proposed site of the memorial, rather than the applicant’s residence. If your idea doesn’t relate to a specific place or crosses multiple regions, you should work towards the ‘National Significance’ category.

 

For more information please visit: https://www.historicengland.org.uk/get-involved/help-write-history/help-find-englands-secret-unknown-forgotten-memorials/competition/