Leitfaden für Nachwuchskünstler: Bewerben für Ausschreibungen und Stipendien

As an emerging artist, you may be more familiar with the creative part of art-making. Maybe you’ve created a body of work, or have shown your work within a graduating exhibition. As you continue to pursue your practice, you’ll also need to develop a range of administrative skills, and one component of the admin side of a studio practice is finding and applying to open calls.

Finding and submitting applications can be tedious, but will help you secure support for your practice including grant funding, studio development through residencies, and all kinds of exhibition opportunities. Besides being a means to secure professional opportunities and further your artistic practice, you can consider each application as a chance to refine how you present your work and  curate your portfolio for new audiences. The following article breaks down strategies for emerging artists new to the administrative side of an art practice including tips for where to find open calls, how to build your application, and assessing which opportunities are most worth your time and effort.

Before You Begin, Research Your Opportunities 

Before you can apply to open calls and grants, you need to spend some time locating opportunities that are appropriate for your practice. There are many resources available to artists and creative practitioners to help you find these listings, including (but not limited to):

• Akimbo – Akimbo is an expansive resource for event listings and opportunities within the arts sector. Akimbo regularly publishes open calls for residencies, expressions of interest for public art projects, and exhibitions. You can find these listings on their Website, or you can subscribe to their email lists hier. 
• Instant Coffee – Instant Coffee is an artist collective with members based in Toronto and Vancouver. Their newsletters include notices of exhibition openings, events, classified ads, and open calls. You can subscribe to their Toronto and Vancouver newsletters hier.
• Die Artengine Artlist – Artengine is a small arts organization based in the capital region of Canada, and in addition to their programming they send out an Artlist that advertises cultural events and calls for work. You can subscribe to the Artlist hier.
• L’AGAVF – The francophone arts organization AGAVF (the Association des groupes en arts visuels francophones) publishes La Liste, a newsletter that includes calls in both English and French. La Liste is an excellent resource to artists in Canada seeking French-language opportunities, and you can subscribe hier.  
• Pilot Art List – The Pilot Art List is a subscription for Canada and US-based artists and curators which narrows down listings to paid opportunities. This subscription itself is a paid service, which offers several options depending on the frequency of listings you would like to receive. If the fee is out of reach, keep an eye out for the Pilot Art Fund which includes an entire free year of the art list. 
• Hyperallergic – Hyperallergic primarily publishes art news, but it also posts a monthly list of opportunities. Their listings are mostly aimed at US-based artists, with some inclusions for the Canadian market. Find their listings hier.
• Artenda – Artenda is a paid service which maintains a database of international art opportunities. There’s lots of information on Artenda to sift through, but If you register with Artenda you can refine your search by qualifiers such as region, artist fee, and deadline.
• Res Artis – Res Artis is a worldwide database specific to artist residencies. You can look for residency profiles, as well as open calls, on their Website. 
• e-flux – e-flux publishes international art news and press releases for exhibitions, but you can also search their website for calls for applications hier. 

In addition to these resources, it’s also worthwhile to keep up with your local artist-run centres, as many will advertise open calls for their programming on social media. If you become a member at an artist-run centre, a typical perk of membership is to receive a newsletter that often includes calls to members.

If you happen to be a student or a recent graduate, many universities and art schools maintain job boards and residency calls that are tailored to students and alumni. OCADU in Toronto offers Career Launcher prizes (sponsored in part by Format), and  the School of the Art Institute of Chicago offers exhibition opportunities to students through their INCUBATOR program, and many other schools offer similar exhibition opportunities within student gallery spaces. Keep an eye on calls that are open within the student community, as these projects are often great ways to collaborate with your peers and to introduce your work within your local arts ecosystem.   

Grant programs vs Open calls

While both open calls and grants provide opportunities to artists, there are distinctions between the two. Open calls tend to advertise residency and exhibition opportunities, while grant programs provide financial support to artists for specific projects or for costs relating to professional practice. If you secure an exhibition or residency through an open call, you might also apply for grants to support the creation of new work, or to fund travel to a residency. 

US-based artists can apply to federally-funded granting opportunities through the National Endowment for the Arts, and can also apply to a range of grants offered by private foundations. Visual artists can apply to grants through the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and can also apply for emergency grant funding offered by the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation und die Rauschenberg Foundation.

For granting opportunities in Canada, your main sources of granting opportunities come from federal, provincial, and municipal arts councils. The federal granting body in Canada is the Canada Council for the Arts, and your provincial and municipal arts council will depend on your location. Don’t underestimate small places when it comes to the arts – for example, artists in Picton ON have the support of the Prince Edward County Arts Council. While most grant programs come from publicly funded arts councils, there are also some privately-funded grant programs that are supported by organizations like the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation und Partners in Art. 

Grant programs support a range of curatorial and artistic opportunities. When researching grants, make sure that the program you are looking at is open to individual artists, as some grants programs are tailored to collectives and arts organizations. Some grant programs may also require artists to have been out of school for a period of time before applying. Read guidelines carefully, and reach out to grant officers when you have questions about your eligibility. 

Building your application

Grants and open calls have different application requirements, but most applications are made up of the same staple ingredients. A typical application will ask that you include an artist statement, a project proposal, a CV, and documentation of your work. 

Artist Statements

Eine Künstlererklärung is a brief statement of your practice that helps to introduce your work to an audience or jury. An artist statement should identify key ideas, influences, and themes that you engage with. It may also be helpful to describe your process or choice of materials in your statement. An artist statement can vary in scope – for example, you might write a statement that is a broad overview of your practice, or one which refers to a specific series or body of work. While your statement can elaborate on elements that may not be readily apparent to a viewer, there should still be a clear connection between your statement and your work. 

Proposals

A proposal is a project plan for the work that you intend to do. When writing proposals, there are several implied questions that you should aim to answer within your text, including:

• What are you planning to do?
• How are you planning to do it?
• When are you planning to do it?
• Why is this work important? 

Try to be direct when writing your proposal. Proposal writing is more technical than creative, and it is important that the jury comes away with a clear grasp of your project after reading it. Ask friends to read over your proposal as you develop it – like all kinds of writing, your proposal will benefit from an outside opinion when editing, and a cold-read from someone who is less familiar with artspeak can help you identify terms and ideas that you may need to clarify. 

Some applications will ask that you combine your statement and proposal, so be careful to read the individual instructions for each opportunity you’re applying to.

Bios

A bio is a brief statement of your education, your communities, and your recent projects and accomplishments. You can also include a short intro to the thematics of your overall work, although this part of your applications should be distinct from the content of your artist statement. Try to have a long bio (approx 250 words) and a short bio (100 words) on hand for applications. 

CV

A CV is a resume that is specific to your artistic projects and related work in the arts. Try to keep your CV focused on recent projects, in the same way that you would focus on recent experience in a resume. Some applications will specify limits to CV length, so it can be useful to have a short-version CV on hand, while also maintaining a full-length master CV that includes your full exhibition history for your own records.

Documentation of Work

Most applications will require photo documentation of past projects, but depending on your practice it may also be appropriate to include video documentation or writing samples. 

Hier sind ein paar Dinge, die du beachten solltest:

• When choosing documentation, tailor your selection to best support the project that you’re proposing. While you might have a range of work in your practice, your support material should be focused on past projects that fit most strongly with the opportunity you are applying for.  
• If you are submitting video documentation, try to have your video samples uploaded to a video hosting service like Vimeo. Most organizations will ask you to send a link in lieu of a video file. 
• Take care when preparing your photo and video documentation, and choose the images which best represent how your work appears in-person. It may also be appropriate to include details of specific works, or installation views. 

On Opportunities That Require Fees:

As you research opportunities, you may notice that some calls will require application fees, or even fees to participate in exhibition or residency programs. This practice can vary by discipline – while it is unusual to see application fees for exhibition proposals to artist run centres, it is more common to pay application fees for film festival submissions or writing contests. It is important to think critically about opportunities that require you to pay money to apply or participate before submitting your materials. There may still be good reasons to pursue these opportunities regardless of fees, but you should be certain that the program is a good fit for your work and your goals. 

Some things to consider:

• What does the program offer in the form of professional opportunities, network building, learning, and promotion of your work?
• Is the organization transparent about the use and need for application and/or program fees?
• If the organization frames itself as an educational institution (like the Banff Centre), will it provide a receipt for payment of tuition that you can apply on your taxes?
• Will the organization provide a letter of support if you decide to write a grant to cover program fees?

Be Persistent, and Be Strategic 

At first it might seem like a good idea to apply to any call that you come across, however, submitting grant applications and open call submissions is a time consuming process. As you gain experience, you’ll learn to select calls that are the best fit for you. 

Be discerning when looking through opportunities, and consider whether the opportunity you’re applying for is within reach. It can also be a good idea to look for programs that prioritize artists with specific identity markers (BIPOC, queer, disabled, woman/femme identified, artist parents) that you might fall under. If you have peers who have been successful with grant programs or other opportunities, ask if they are willing to share their application materials so that you can get a sense of what worked for them.

Keep in mind that most open calls and grant programs receive significantly more applications than they are able to support. Jury processes are subjective, and receiving a rejection– or even a series of rejections- is not necessarily a reflection on your work or writing skills. There are many factors, including the broader funding climate, which may limit opportunities for exhibitions, residency slots, or grant opportunities at a given time. When possible, ask for feedback on your application, and try not to be too discouraged when you receive a ‘no’. 

Remember: participating in your immediate artistic community can help to take the sting off a rejection, and can also open doors for future projects. Keeping up with studio visits, even informal ones with friends, can also help you find clear, conversational language to think through your practice with. Share resources with friends and peers, and celebrate your wins together. With every application you are introducing your work to new viewers, and refining how you articulate your ideas. Like any other kind of work, grant and proposal writing rewards persistence, and you can always revise and re-use your materials for future applications.