Jerwood Open Forest – Call for Proposals (£30,000 Comission)
The second edition of Jerwood Open Forest is an exceptional opportunity for visual artists to propose ideas for a major new £30,000 commission to be realised anywhere within England’s Public Forest Estate, supported by Arts Council England.
Jerwood Open Forest facilitates new interactions between artists and forests and opens up new art experiences to a wide public audience, leading a national conversation about how contemporary visual artists engage with the environment today.
In October 2014 the inaugural Jerwood Open Forest commissions were unveiled at two forest sites across the UK, reaching a national audience of 70,000. Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt) permanently installed their spherical public sculpture, Cosmos, at Alice Holt Forest in Surrey; and across three evenings in Kielder Water & Forest Park in Northumberland, Chris Watson collaborating with producer Iain Pate produced a multi-channel, spatialised sound installation, Hrafn; Conversations with Odin.
There is no brief. This is a call for bold, broad-thinking proposals that explore the potential of forests as sites for art, both in and about the environment. Proposals can be for work in any discipline or medium, temporary or permanent, site-specific or for touring to more than one location. From initial ideas submitted, five artists or collaborations will be selected to each receive a £2,000 research and development fee. Each selected artist will be fully supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Forestry Commission England to expand on their concept, assess the viability of their idea and explore potential sites over the six-month period.
A curated exhibition presenting the artists’ work and exploring broader contemporary debates around critical practice and art in the public realm and the environment will open at Jerwood Space, London in November 2016 as part of the Jerwood Visual Arts programme. One artist will be selected during the exhibition to receive a £30,000 commissioning budget to realise their proposal.
At the first stage, we are looking for ambitious ideas that respond to the context of the Public Forest Estate. It is the idea that counts and should be the focus of the proposal; we do not need it to be a fully resolved concept at this stage, nor do we require artists to demonstrate previous experience of working on this scale or in related contexts.
Entry is by online application.
All artists are required to enter:
- A maximum 500 word proposal outlining your idea
- A current CV
- A maximum of six images of current work or work in progress (files no larger than 500kb) or link to video/film
- An entry fee of £10 per application
Deadlines for entries are 1700 on Friday 1st February 2016.
To apply and for more information please see the website, here:
http://jerwoodopenforest.org/