Caribbean curators – fresh milk barbados

The Tilting Axis Fellowship is a direct outcome of the Tilting Axis meetings in 2015 at Fresh Milk in Barbados, in 2016 at the Pérez Art Museum Miami and in 2017 at The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands. For its 2019 iteration, Scotland based cultural partners including the Glasgow School of Art, The School of Art History at the University of St Andrews, CCA Glasgow, LUX Scotland, Hospitalfield and curatorial duo Mother Tongue have come together to offer support for a research fellowship to Scotland for an emerging contemporary art practitioner living and working in the Caribbean to share knowledge about current approaches towards commissioning and collecting in the arts.

For Whom?

Curators, researchers, artists, or cultural producers based in the Caribbean region who want to make new links in Scotland and have a keen interest in developing their curatorial practice. Applicants must have a working knowledge of English.

Goals

Develop, stimulate, support, and visualise curatorial and artistic realities coming from the Caribbean region;
Facilitate face-to-face communication in Scotland;
Offer free and open access to knowledge and practices;
Provide a stable platform for professional experiences;
Produce critical knowledge on educational tools as well as visual culture;
Focus on emerging practices;
Utilise the existing Tilting Axis network;
Offer practical support for the duration of the research trip in Scotland.

This Fellowship opportunity focuses on the development of pragmatic and critical curatorial and artistic practice hailing from the Caribbean region, and is research and practice-led, and mentor-based. The fellow will be invited to Scotland for up to one month from 1 October 2019 to undertake a period of open-ended research and development. Artists or curators may apply to undertake research for a mode of curatorial practice. The Fellowship is focused on alternative forms of Collections and Commissioning, in collaboration with partners across Scotland whose work focuses on various forms of collecting, archiving or supporting the development of artworks.

Within the Tilting Axis annual convenings, complexities of mobility, the politics of archiving, access and privilege, decolonisation, institutionalism, curatorial knowledge, pragmatics, and social realities have surfaced as keywords of urgency within Caribbean cultural ecosystems. We seek proposals that engage with the unique visual culture available in the Caribbean and what might be learned from its unexpected and innovative approaches. The Fellowship has an open-ended outcome, offering support for critical development of curatorial or artistic practice while giving a practical base within partner organisations to research different methodologies and institutional approaches.

Drawing on the specifics of the Caribbean region through processes of decolonisation, race, mobility, access and privilege and digitalisation, your proposal might approach actively how people live and work, and especially how contemporary art takes a responsibility to reflect and act on it. What are fears as well as potentials in these current times? Within such a complex geography, what are the challenges? What are the interventions? The Fellowship might support and expand these conversations on a mutual basis.

More information about each organisation’s core interests can be found below. It is expected that the Fellow will focus on a period of research with each organisation to mutually address some of these questions across the month-long residency.

The fellow will receive a fee of £1500 and a per diem to cover expenses and living costs whilst in Scotland. All travel and accommodation costs will be covered by the host partners. An itinerary of travel, meetings and public events will be arranged in collaboration with the successful applicant and partners, prior to the fellow’s arrival. The budget will be managed by the partners, and includes a winter clothing allowances of £300. The Fellow is also expected to participate in a public event or lectures in two or three Scottish locations, to share their knowledge, context and practice.

A contribution to the public blogs of British Council and CCA Glasgow as well as the Tilting Axis website will be required along with a final report on the Fellowship. Tilting Axis partners will work towards funding additional funds for the fellow to attend Tilting Axis 6, (location tbc) where the fellow can present on their experience.

Application

Applicants for the Fellowship are invited to develop an independent proposal outlining a clear interest in the issues and organisations highlighted. The proposal should be content driven and can be based on already existing research or offer new projects. The fellow is not expected to produce an outcome or finished artwork but will be expected to speak publicly about their ongoing research or interests whilst in Scotland.

Departing from a curatorial or artistic ambition, we expect to see a statement of intent of maximum 1000 words. This statement should explain the fellow’s research focus, respond directly to the keywords and thematics raised in the call out, and highlight reasons for visiting Scotland and/or the partner organisations. A separate artist/curatorial statement can also be supplied. Please also include a CV and two references, and an indication of availability from early October 2019.

The application should be submitted via e-mail to: Ainslie Roddick, CCA Glasgow Curator: ainslie@cca-glasgow.com.

The deadline for submission is 15 April 2019.

For more information on the fellowship and the partners, visit the Tilting Axis website here.

As a direct outcome of the Tilting Axis meeting held at the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands in May 2017, the University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) Art Galleries at Black Studies has come together with Tilting Axis to offer a Curatorial Fellowship to an emerging curator living and working in the Caribbean.

This Fellowship opportunity focuses on curators living and working within the Caribbean region, and is both research and practice-led, and mentor-based. The Fellow will receive a maximum of USD$5,500 towards a fee, travel, accommodation and living costs. The Fellowship is supported by University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) Art Galleries at Black Studies.

This Fellowship includes round-trip airfare from any country within the Caribbean to Austin, Texas, where the Fellow will have access to private accomodation, in the award-winning home of Susanna and Richard Finnell, local collectors, for a period of four weeks. During this timeframe, the Fellow will be able to view and work with the University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) Art Galleries at Black Studies’ Collection along with the LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies Collection, and the campus libraries.

This Fellowship also includes access to the 800-piece private Christian-Green Collection comprised of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American art works, with a dedicated focus on works from Haiti. The Fellow will also have access to the Christian-Green’s Reading Room and will be mentored by Lise Ragbir, the Director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at UT, with whom he/she will work to produce a fully funded exhibition in the Warfield Center’s Idea Lab Gallery, in the Fall of 2019.

Application Process:

Proposals will be judged by an international jury consisting of curators, academics, and museum professionals, after which shortlisted candidates (3) will be invited for an interview via Skype.

The Fellow will be selected on the basis of a letter of interest stating how this opportunity and access to collections and archives would inform and develop their curatorial practice, and why they think they would be a good candidate. The proposal should be no longer than 1000 words, and can be submitted to: tiltingaxis@gmail.com.

Please enclose CV and two references.

The Fellowship will be conducted over a four week period in either the Fall semester of 2018 or the Spring semester of 2019. Exact dates to be determined in consultation with the mentor.

The submission deadline for applications is May 18th, 2018, and the Curatorial Fellow will be announced at the upcoming Tilting Axis 4 meeting in the Dominican Republic on May 31st – June 2nd, 2018.

Jurors will be:

Lise Ragbir, the Director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at The University of Texas at Austin
Eddie Chambers, Professor in the Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin
Holly Bynoe, ARC Magazine, The National Art Gallery of the Bahamas and Tilting Axis co-founder
Tobias Ostrander, Senior Curator, PAMM
Mario Caro, board member of Res Artis, Tilting Axis partner
Annalee Davis, Fresh Milk Barbados, Tilting Axis co-founder
Natalie Urquhart, Director, The National Gallery of the Cayman Islands
Sara Hermann, Visual Arts Consultant, Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jimenes
Joel Butler, Visual Arts and Exhibitions Coordinator, Centro Cultural Eduardo León Jimenes