Nottingham Contemporary

ABOUT

Nottingham Contemporary and Delfina Foundation are excited to announce a new opportunity for East Midlands-based writers, or practitioners/artists for whom writing is central to their work. The residency recipient is invited to respond to Nottingham Contemporary’s current research strand, Emergency & Emergence, and will have the opportunity to present their work through events and writing. The recipient will also engage with Delfina Foundation’s thematic residency programme Politics of Food alongside a UK and international group of practitioners.

THE PROGRAMMES

Nottingham Contemporary: Emergency & Emergence

Nottingham Contemporary’s new programme and research strand, Emergency & Emergence, investigates transdisciplinary, sensorial and speculative practices of radical imagination, both as a possibility for pedagogical and political encounters and a way of activating a move from emergency to emergence, from crisis to renewal. By putting a provocation towards reimagining our planet with critical and transformative prospects of sense-making and wayfinding, configured in the forms of reparative readings, it seeks to expand our own sense of the world.

Reverberating ideas and knowledge(s) opposing racial and colonial capitalism conceived not only through visual culture but also through political ecology and radical politics, Emergency & Emergence assembles diverse cultural practitioners, collectives and communities to generate new emancipatory possibilities and forms of life, founded upon social justice and environmental wellbeing.

This long-term, multi-platform research strand unfolds in a series of intimate methodologies over the course of 2022-23, manifesting itself through a new issue of The Contemporary Journal, study-as-listening sessions, and a writer-in-residence, as well as newly commissioned performances, a symposium, and a series of workshops.

Delfina Foundation: Politics of Food

Since 2014, Delfina Foundation’s Politics of Food programme has worked with artists, activists, agronomists, artisans, bakers, butchers, chefs, economists, farmers, fermenters, foragers, historians, scientists, policy makers, nutritionists and more, delivering over 100 residencies with public programmes taking the format of meals, exhibitions, walks, talks, pickings and a pop-up cafe. Delfina Foundation’s first book dedicated to the topic was launched at the end of 2019 and is distributed by Sternberg Press.

In Autumn 2022, Delfina Foundation will launch its fifth concentrated season of residencies and public programmes focusing Politics of Food investigations on the most pressing issue of our time: the climate emergency. Agriculture alone is responsible for 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, 92% of global water use, 38% of earth's ice-free land, and is a major source of biodiversity loss and land degradation. In our oceans, the impact of the world's fastest growing food production system - intensive aquaculture - encapsulates the complexity of future “sustainable” diets as nutritional, policy and environmental factors rub against one another. Addressing how and what we eat is critical to the survival of both human, and more than human, species.

The programme partner for Politics of Food in 2022 is Gaia Art Foundation, an innovative non-profit that facilitates exchange across the fields of art, ecology, science and technology. Gaia Art Foundation supports pioneering artistic practices and encourage experimentation that investigate current issues and try to find solutions to improve our ecology, our society and our collective future. Their ambition is to engender vibrant collaboration across disciplines to foster and provoke new ways of seeing, thinking and being.

Before applying, applicants are encouraged to look at both Delfina Foundation’s previous Politics of Food seasons and book and Nottingham Contemporary’s The Contemporary Journal.

RESIDENCY DETAILS

The residency is a paid opportunity for an East Midlands-based artist and/or writer. It offers editorial, publishing, and curatorial support from both Nottingham Contemporary's Live Programmes team and Delfina Foundation’s general team and also the invitation to contribute writing to Nottingham Contemporary’s The Contemporary Journal and to instigate and lead a number of public events such as study sessions, readings, and workshops at Nottingham Contemporary.

Alongside, the recipient will have the opportunity to participate in group presentations and discussions, networking events, field trips and workshops as part of The Politics of Food season at Delfina Foundation, which runs from 19 September to 18 December 2022.

RESIDENCY DURATION

3 months (to be decided with the applicant) between September 2022 – December 2022

FEE

£1500 plus additional production, travel and mentoring budget and occasional accommodation at Delfina Foundation in London (when available/as required)

APPLICATION TIMELINE

Application deadline: Friday, 5 August 2022, 12:00 BST.

Interviews: Shortlisted applicants will be invited to interview the w/c 15 August

Selection: All applicants will be notified of the panel’s decision by 22 August 2022.

APPLICATION DOCUMENTS

Applicants are expected to submit the following documents:

1. Completed application form

• Please save the completed application form as a PDF.
• Please name your PDF in the following format, substituting your own name: LastName_FirstName_Application.pdf

2. Examples of work: Either a portfolio or weblinks

Portfolio

• One PDF file with all images and/or texts (extracts/samples).
• Each sample/work must include a short description of the project.
• Applicants are advised to only submit relevant/recent images/writing. Please ensure the document is no longer than 25 pages, and a file size less than 4MB.
• For any videos/films, please provide links.
• Please name this document in the following format, substituting your own name: LastName_FirstName_Portfolio.pdf

[OR]

Weblinks

• In addition to a portfolio, Nottingham Contemporary and Delfina Foundation are happy to refer to the applicant’s website.
• The website must, however, have clear descriptive information about previous projects. If your website is not straightforward or up-to-date, please submit a portfolio instead.
• Please list all weblinks in section 5 of the application form.

3. CV/resume

• If your CV is not part of your portfolio, please send it separately.
• Your CV should detail recent publications, projects, exhibitions, workshops and residencies.
• Please name this document in the following format, substituting your own name: LastName_FirstName_CV.pdf

APPLICATION SUBMISSION

Submit your application documents as outlined above to: opencall@delfinafoundation.com

The subject line of your email should be: East Midlands

SUBMISSION NOTES

• Please send all attachments in a single email.
• The total size of the attachments should be below 4MB.
• Do not change the formatting of the application form and do not exceed the stated word counts.
• Do not include any important information in the body of your email. It will not be recorded as part of your application.
• Do not send anything other than the documents requested.

Click here to download the application form