Bulgarian Fund for Women launches an Open Call for funding new artistic projects of female artists :
EVERYTHING IS JUST FINE
Applications deadline: June 27, 2019
Fund size: 30 000 Bulgarian leva
Announcing the results: July 15, 2019
Bulgarian Fund for Women invites female artists of all areas of contemporary visual arts do propose projects for new artworks that deal with the “women’s issues”, from the place of women in the art system to their role in society, equality, the labor market, maternity, etc. The selected projects will receive grants up to 3500 Bulgarian leva and will be presented in a grand closing exhibition.
The funding for this open call is provided by Power Pops, Takeaway, Mama Cash и Filia die Frauenstiftung.
THEMATIC FOCUS
The Call aims to provoke a debate on women’s role in art and society nowadays. Are women in Bulgaria equal? Is there discrimination and inequality in society, art or within the family? Is activism needed or is feminism a closed page? Is everything just fine?
(You could read more about women in the art system in Dobromira Teresheva’s analysys HERE, soon to be available in English as well)
The call’s goal is to encourage female artists to be more conscious about being women and to furthermore address issues in their work that are important for women – family and workplace affirmation, maternity, stereotypes related to physical appearance, equal representation in the areas of power, the art market, museum collections. The participants in the competition are invited to express their position through the means of art – to confirm or deny the need for feminism today in Bulgaria.
FORMAT OF COMPETITION
Admissibility
The works with which the female artists apply must meet the following requirements:
– New works only: Candidates must present a new and unreleased work, created for the contest and reflecting its thematic focus. Existing works are not accepted. In case the candidate offers a new work from an already existing series, it should be clearly described how it differs from the previous works and how it responds to the topic of the call.
– Allowed: painting, sculpture, installation, object, photography, video art and sound art, performances. All mixed and experimental formats, as well as research and documentary, are welcome, but they have to be conceived for display in a gallery and museum context, so theatrical performances, feature films, books (in the classical sense), etc. are not accepted.
Financial conditions
– Maximum funding per grant: 3500 BGN
– The budget provided can be used for both production and remuneration
– The maximum allowable remuneration that candidates can plan in their budget is 1500 leva.
– Eligible costs: purchase of materials, rental of equipment and space, printed and other types of production costs. Travel costs, accommodation and fees of third parties are also allowed, as long as their expediency is proven and approved in advance by the organizers.
– The grant will be paid to the selected candidates as a scholarship.
– After completing the project, the supported participants must provide a short financial report containing an inventory of the costs incurred. Compensatory documents will only be required in case of doubt or need of further clarity.
Presenting the results and communicating the call
– All works created within this call will be presented at an exhibition whose dates and venue will beannounced and discussed with the participants further on.
– Participants must provide the information and images necessary for the public communication of the competition. They will be invited to assist in the communication of the competition by giving interviews and more.
Copyright
– All works created within the call remain the property of the respective authors.
– The BFW organizers will be grateful if their support is mentioned infuture public exhibitions of the works.
– The participants give the organizers the right to use information, reproductions of the works and photo and video documentation from the exhibition for an indefinite period, in order to promote the activities and goals ofBulgarian Fund for Women. BFW is obliged to correctly specify the authors’ names and their works, not to change the materials and not to use them for commercial purposes.
WHO CAN APPLY
All women and trans-women, with no limitation in terms of age, education and experience. Candidates must have Bulgarian citizenship or be permanent residents in Bulgaria. Applications from Bulgarian female artists living abroad are also accepted.
APPLICATION
Candidates must include in their applications the following documents:
– a portfolio (containing a biography, contact phone, and at least 5 reproductions of works – no webpage links are accepted instead of a portfolio, it should be a separate file attached to the application);
– conceptual design * (up to 2 printed pages). In the conceptual design, the link between the project and the thematic focus of the competition should be clearly stated and justified;
– the project budget, which includes the amount and distribution of production and remuneration costs;
– time required to complete the project (preferably no more than 3 months);
– visualizations and additional materials – optional.
Technical requirements:
– admissible files: pdf, doc, docx, xls, odt, jpeg, mov, mp4, mpeg
– the required documents should be a total size of no more than 10 MB.
– if the file sizes are larger, they should be sent via a file sharing platform (wetransfer, transit, google drive, video: but definitely by a private link). No automatic messages are accepted – the download link should be copied in the body of the email and its expiry period should be specified.
– All documents should be in Bulgarian or English.
All documents should be sent by 23:59 on June 27, 2019 by email to office@bgfundforwomen.org.
* Contest organizers encourage in-depth research. In this sense, the conceptual design may describe not so much a particular final product as the theme and direction that will be considered. However, the goal and approach need to be clearly defined. If necessary, you can contact the BFW team at office@bgfundforwomen.org
JURY
Stefka Tsaneva – curator, cultural manager and critic. She has studied Scandinavian Studies and Media Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin and comparative art studies at New Bulgarian University. She works at the Goethe-Institut Cultural Department and is responsible for the Visual and Performing Arts projects as well as for the Institute’s Gallery program. Together with Vesela Nozharova and Vera Mlechevska she is the founder of the International Curatorial Residence CLIC in Sofia. In 2018, Ö, a project for a shared studio with artists was launched, as well as the series of conversations “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue”, which take place in the Structure Gallery. Since 2017 she has been the curator of the annual “Art Start: Young Artists to Watch” together with Vessela Nozharova and Daniela Radeva. Founder and hostess of the Moleskin Radio Broadcasting on Radio Sofia and Radio Plovdiv.
Dessislava Dimova is an art historian and curator based in Brussels, Belgium and Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds an MA in Art History from the National Academy of Fine Arts, Sofia and in Philosophy from the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Middlesex, London. She is currently curating a project of artistic collaborations for BOZAR, Brussels and organizing and conducting research on Bulgarian post-war avant-gardes with the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. She has curated the conversation series “Politics without Poetics”, NICC, Brussels (2014-2015); “Objects moving minds in space.”, Focus Bulgaria, viennacontemporary (2015) and the walking lectures “The Wrong Side of History”, Zapaden Park Festival, Sofia (2014).Her exhibitions include the co-curated 10th anniversary programme of the Museum Nights in Plovdiv, Bulgaria (2014) andThank You for Your Understanding– 2. International Antakya Biennial, Turkey (2010).
Dobromira Terpesheva is an art researcher, manager and curator currently based in Sofia, Bulgaria. She is the managing director of UniArt Gallery, the artistic space of New Bulgarian University. She has worked on a number of exhibition as a curator, most notable of which are Ontology: Words and Graphite, Milko Boshkov and Boris Hristov, UniArt Gallery (2019); Feasts for the Senses. Genre Painting from the 17th and 18th Century, NBU European Art Collection, UniArt Gallery (2018); Territories of Sight, group exhibition, Vaska Emanuilova Gallery branch of Sofia City Art Gallery (2017). As a coordinator she has organized exhibitions such as The Destructive Positivism of Milosh Gavazov, Milosh Gavazov, UniArt Gallery (2018); UNAPPARENT, site-specific installation conceived by Borish Dalchev and Michaella Dobreva, UniArt Gallery (2019); as well as educational initiatives and various lectures at UniArt Gallery since 2017. She has published studies on the topic of the female gaze – The ‘Female Gaze’ of Camille Claudel, Sledva Magazine (Issue No. 36, 2018) and co-authored a text about public art in urban spaces – Art at Large, University Magazine (Issue No. 23, 2018). Dobromira Terpesheva’s interests span between contemporary art, with a focus on public art and the Bulgarian cultural scene, as well as women and gender studies, theater and arthouse cinema.
Lea Vajsova – assistant professor at Sofia University’s Department of Sociology. Her academic interests are mainly in the fields of critical theory and social movements. She is a member of the left feminist collective LevFem. Through the years she has collaborated with the following artistic projects “Multipolis: Images of the City” of the Fridge of Ivana Nencheva and Natalia Todorova, with curator Stefka Tsaneva; Sofia Queer Forum with curators Boryana Rossa and Stanimir Panayotov; “Project 0” with author Kiril Kuzmanov and curator Valdiya Mihaylova.
Gergana Kutseva – Development and Communications Director of, Bulgarian Fund for Women. Gergana has a Master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology, and has published over 20 articles and studies on the mediation process and its effects on political culture. From 2015 she has been working for the Bulgarian Women’s Fund. She has over 15 years of professional experience in the field of public communications for the non-governmental, cultural and business sectors. She’s been responsible for the organization and communication of many cultural and artistic events and projects.
