<nettime-ann> Announcement: Open Call BAK Fellowship 2018/2019

BAK Fellowship 2018/2019

Call for Proposals

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP OPEN TO ADVANCED
PRACTITIONERS WORKING IN THE FIELDS OF
CONTEMPORARY ARTS, THEORY, AND ACTIVISMS.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 6 APRIL 2018

Since 2017, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht conducts a post-academic Fellowship Program with, at its center, research on reframing and rethinking conditions of the contemporary through politicized art-making and inquiry. The 10-month Fellowship Program offers 10 research positions per year (September–June) to Dutch and international practitioners involved in contemporary arts, theory, and activisms. The Fellowship Program develops talent and critical practice in concert with the public experimental projects of BAK, advancing the notion of art as a public sphere and a political space.

The Fellowship is predicated on regular, active development of an individual research trajectory, as well as participation in collective research and exchange with other Fellows. Fellowship research proposals should speak to and with BAK’s core research, experimental methodology development, and program itinerary Propositions for Non-Fascist Living (2017–2020). Successful fellowship proposals correspond to at least one of this program’s three foci: conditions, politics, and genealogies of contemporary global migration; ecologies, ecological crisis, and naturecultures; and the potentials and dangers of technology in struggles for justice and transformative politics.

The Fellows gather at BAK every six weeks (seven times a year in total) for intensive, collective seminars and workshops with visiting artists, scholars, activists, and other cultural practitioners. At least twice yearly, the Fellows participate in and/or organize a public component engaging a wider audience beyond specifically academic and cultural fields, which is realized as BAK public programming. Intermittently, the Fellows present to and/or facilitate workshops with the student community in Utrecht. The BAK Fellowship Program involves collaborative partnerships with HKU University of the Arts and Utrecht University, allowing Fellows to connect their research practices to an artistic and academic institutional field through tutoring, leading workshops, and exchange with students.

Five Fellowships are awarded to Netherlands-based practitioners. The international Fellows’ preferences to be residential or low-residential can be negotiated individually on the basis of their respective research proposals and distance to BAK (low-residential positions are available only for those based within or near Europe). Residency accommodation is provided free of charge for one international Fellow (based inside or outside of Europe) who would otherwise be unable to travel back and forth for meetings due to political conditions and/or incommensurable economic circumstances.

The Fellowship Program is dedicated to facilitating collective, intergenerational practice, and is committed to engaging a critical group coming from, with, and for the otherwise. We therefore encourage people with practices not often canonized, of marginalized identities and experiences, and of a variety of ages to apply. The Fellowship Program is conducted in English.

The current (2017/2018) Fellows are: Sepake Angiama; Isshaq Al-Barbary and Diego Segatto (Campus in Camps); Matthijs de Bruijne; Luigi Coppola; Quinsy Gario; Ola Hassanain;
Otobong Nkanga; Wendelien van Oldenborgh; and Pelin Tan.

EXPECTATIONS

Each Fellow is an advanced practitioner who has completed a Masters or equivalent. The Fellow is able to dedicate at least 60% of their time throughout the Fellowship year to developing their research trajectory.

The Fellow is expected to propose and develop an experimental research trajectory within their own field of practice.

The Fellows are required to develop a collective practice of mutual learning, exchange, and development of ideas and common projects. To achieve this goal, each Fellow is asked to convene a semi-public program as part of one of the Fellowship gatherings and twice yearly contribute to the public program of BAK.

The Fellows further participate in BAK and with its myriad local and international publics through Fellowship meetings every six weeks; regular contact with the BAK team in the
development of research trajectories; participation in reading groups, study groups, or
collaboration on joint projects with Fellows, visiting advisors, and BAK publics; and educational programming more widely.

CONSIDERATIONS

Does the Fellowship research proposal show significant potential in reflecting and benefiting from a collective, politicized research environment and from the association with BAK?

Does the Fellowship research proposal relate to at least one of the aforementioned foci in explicit and creative ways?

Is the Fellowship research proposal significant for the development of the candidate’s long-term practice?

If applying for the international residency position: Is the applicant unable to travel in and out of their country of residence due to political conditions and/or require the stability of a place of paid-residence due to disparate economic circumstances?

Successful applications will show a significant ability and practice of collective work dedicated to utilizing the space of art as a multiplier of interventions into the contemporary, and show a critical focus on and background in creating practices from, for, in, and with the

otherwise.

BAK is dedicated to creating a Fellowship Program that critically intervenes in the generalized patterns of access in and outside of what can be considered the art world, and facilitating intergenerational practice. We therefore encourage people with practices not often
canonized, of marginalized identities and experiences, and a variety of ages to apply.
The Fellowship Program is conducted in English.

FINANCIAL CONDITIONS

Each fellow receives a stipend of €1.500 per month (€15.000 in total). A Fellowship participation fee of €3.000 to be paid by each Fellow (with the exception of the residency position) is required at the beginning of the Fellowship or according to an individual payment plan. Fellows are responsible for their own health insurance.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

—28 February 2018: Opening of the call for Fellowship applications

—6 April 2018: Final deadline for Fellowship applications

—End June 2018: Public announcement of selected Fellows

—Fellowship term is between 1 September 2018 and 30 June 2019

For the application form, please click here.

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE APPLICATION

Wietske Maas, BAK Fellowship Program: wietske@bakonline.org