“Freedom from Want” - FREE TO AIR , London
Deadline: 11 March, 2010
This is a call for London-based artists to submit proposals for moving-image projects to form part of FREE TO AIR – a four-year programme of artistic activity delivered by Film and Video Umbrella and funded by London Councils. FREE TO AIR is part of a range of cultural initiatives funded by London Councils intended to address the under-representation within the cultural sector of artists and communities from ethnically diverse backgrounds. We are therefore particularly interested in hearing from artists to whom issues of cultural diversity and race are significant.
Commission Opportunity
This is an opportunity for a practicing artist to produce a major new film, video or digital media work to be commissioned and produced in collaboration with Film and Video Umbrella during 2010. The work will be staged at two London venues during Autumn 2010, alongside a screening programme and other contextual activities. The work will also go on to be exhibited at further UK venues as part of Film and Video Umbrella’s UK-wide programme of touring exhibitions.
The commissioned artist will be offered an artist’s fee.
Curatorial theme
Taking as its starting point the famous ‘four freedoms’ – freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want and freedom from fear – identified by Roosevelt in 1941, FREE TO AIR sets out to explore some of the multiple meanings of freedom in contemporary society.
The focus of this year’s project will be ‘Freedom from Want’. Artists interested in applying for the 2010 commission are invited to address this theme broadly and creatively.
Artists might choose to focus on the economic disparity that has long been a feature of life in a city whose visible extremes of wealth and deprivation have become increasingly pronounced since the recent onset of recession.
Or they may choose to look more kindly on the material advantages that the city can offer (when compared to other, more impoverished parts of the world), emphasising the extent to which people’s life-chances can be enhanced dramatically with the benefit of social provision or through access to improved economic opportunities.
Or they may decide to look more critically at the consumer society that contemporary London increasingly embodies; in its endless, ever-more spectacular parade of most-wanted goods and commodities, and in its rampedup, almost rampant creation of unsatisfied, potentially unsatisfiable desires.
Background
FREE TO AIR launched in 2009, and featured a diverse programme of activities, including a new commission, Sleep Walk, Sleep Talk by Suki Chan. Presented in collaboration with A Foundation and 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning, this two-screen video installation formed the centerpiece of a series of screenings and events, running throughout September and October 2009, which celebrated the principle of freedom of speech and the enduring importance of freedom of expression. For more information, please visit www.freetoair.org.uk.
Further opportunities as part of FREE TO AIR will be announced in Spring 2010.
Please subscribe to Film and Video Umbrella’s newsletter (www.fvu.co.uk) to be alerted.
Schedule
The selected artist will be informed week commencing 5 April 2010.
Subject to contracts, pre-production and production will start immediately.
The exhibition will open in September 2010.
Guidelines for Submission
Proposals must be for a moving-image work suitable for digital playback.
Projects must be filmed in London.
A production budget of £20K will be available, and this should cover preproduction, production and post-production. Additional budget is available for presentation, touring and marketing. In addition to this, the commissioned artists will be offered a fee of £2,300, subject to contract.
To apply:
Please submit application form and supporting moving image material following our online submission guidelines OR by posting it to:
Artists’ Submissions - FTA
Film and Video Umbrella
8 Vine Yard
London SE1 1QL
Deadline for Submissions: 11 March 2010 at 3.00pm.
Applicants will be notified of the decision by 5 April 2010
To be eligible applicants must:
be London-based
be a practicing artist, preferably with an established exhibition history of moving-image works
have completed and returned a monitoring form as part of their application
A Commission Proposal should respond to the curatorial theme outlined in the call, be achievable within the mentioned schedule and consist of:
A completed application form including monitoring form
A short showreel of previous work
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