Chisenhale Studios is now inviting applications from early career artists for a new Digital Residency and Commission as part the Into the Wild programme for 2023. Join us to work alongside the online digital element of the programme and create a new artwork in response.  The selected recipient will receive a fee of £1,400 (7 days paid at £200 per day) and have up to £500 available for production costs.  Both are inclusive of VAT.

Please find below:

  • About the Residency & Commission 
  • Fees
  • Who can apply
  • Dates
  • Accessibility
  • How to Apply

About the Residency & Commission:
Into The Wild is an alternative artist development programme, supporting early career artists to push their practice, learn tools for developing their work, meet and collaborate with other artists, and ask questions about how we can create more equitable and accessible art worlds together as a result.

This year we would like an artist at a similar stage in their careers to take part in, view, experience and digest all the online content shared during the programme – and create a digital artwork in response. This could be in the form of a drawing, animation, presentation, website, video, audio, or a combination of these and any other digital formats – but it must be experienced online, and will be linked to the Into The Wild website.

This is the first time we have invited an early career artist to be in digital residency with us, however previous artist responses to the programme have included:

Into the Wild is financially supported by Arts Council England and the artists at Chisenhale Studios who each pay a levy and give their time.  Further details about the programme can be found at http://www.intothewildchisenhale.co.uk/  & here on the Studios website.

Fees
Calculated using Artist Union England rates for an artist in the first few years of their career the day rate is £200 a day. We will pay for 7 days work for a total fee of £1,400.  The time can be broken down approximately as follows:

  • Attend online talks & workshops, make notes/drawings/observations equivalent of approx. x2 days (split across multiple shorter sessions – see dates for more info)
  • Time to digest programme & create digital artwork in response approx. x4 days
  • Work with us to organise an online sharing of the digital artwork approx. x1 day

In addition to fee, a production budget of up to £500 is available to cover:

  • Any materials or software required  for the process or production of digital artwork.
  • Costs associated with making the digital artwork accessible (i.e. closed captions/image descriptors/BSL – supported by Access Support Worker)

The Artist Facilitator and a member of the Chisenhale Studios team will support the selected artist to manage the production budget in accordance with proposed ideas and residency outcomes through regular check in meetings.

The fee and costs are inclusive of VAT. The selected artist must be registered as self-employed for tax purposes in the UK.

Who can apply:
Practising artists based in England who have completed an arts based BA degree course in 2019, 2020 or 2021 (you must have graduated at least 1 year ago, and no more than 4 years ago). We will also consider artists who don’t have an arts BA but have undertaken an equivalent level of training/education and/or who have been working on their art practice for the same length of time i.e. approx. 4 years. We will not consider artists who are studying for or have completed an MA – this is because we want this to be an opportunity for an artist at a similar stage in their careers to the artists participating in the programme. 

We do accept applications from duos or collectives but the fee and budget is fixed and so the work would need to be shared between the residency artists. 

Into the Wild is created and driven by and for artists with first hand experience of the inequality that exists within the art world, who work towards making it more equitable and accessible through their work and practice. This open call therefore, is an opportunity for an early career artist that also relates to these aims and experiences. 

Dates/Times  

  • We expect the residency artist to be able to attend all online talks held every last Wednesday of the month from January to June 2023. These will be held on zoom in the evening – 7pm to 8.30pm.
  • As well as at least 1 of the online workshops run by Mesh collective. There will be 4 total between January and September 2023 run with different partner organisations. Dates and times TBC (sessions will be approximately 2hrs long, most probably in the evenings).
  • The in-person sessions taking place January to June will be recorded and put on our YouTube channel periodically – these can be watched in your own time, to draw upon too.
  • We imagine the residency artist completing the commissioned digital artwork by August 2023, to share in an online event between August and September 2023. Exact format/date/times to be agreed by all involved. 

Accessibility
If you require any access support to fulfil the residency/commission we will help cover the cost i.e. screen readers, closed captions etc. Please let us know your needs when you apply. We encourage you to send us an access rider along with your application if useful. For guidance on formatting, Disability Arts Online has a free access rider template here: https://disabilityarts.online/magazine/opinion/access-rider-open-template/

How to apply:
We accept written, video and audio applications. Your application should consist of:

  • A cover letter
  • Examples of previous work
  • An up to date CV

If you have an access statement, please attach this too.

To apply, please email the above to: andrea@chisenhale.co.uk with the Subject: DIGITAL RESIDENCY. Please ensure that all files do not exceed a combined 5MB.

If you have any questions about applying, email sophie@chisenhale.co.uk by 18th November 2022.  

Deadline: midnight Sunday 27th November 2022 (that’s midnight of Sunday night, not Saturday night)

Cover Letter: Feel free to answer as yourself, try not to use jargon and be honest. It’s fine to bullet point your answers. Notes with each question are for guidance. Max 1 page of A4 or 6 mins video or audio covering the following:

  • Why are you interested in working with Into The Wild? This could include the stage you are at in your own development as an early career artist, connections to our ethos etc.
  • Tell us about your own practice/experience of making digital artworks. Your interests, what’re you working on, work to date, hopes for the future etc.
  • How will you approach the residency and commission? Let us know what your process might be if you got the opportunity. How do you record your ideas/transform them into a final work etc. (This can obviously change as the residency progresses).

Supporting images/media: text, media links and images from previous/current creative projects, pieces of work, ideas for future pieces, current research or works in progress. We understand that you might not have been able to make a lot recently so it can be anything like notebook pages, voice notes, scraps of paper, mind maps, or some other way indicative of how you work.

No more than three A4 pages for examples of your work, combined into one file with a file size no larger than 5MB. It may be useful to make short annotations on your examples with captions to give context i.e. the name of the work, whether it is finished, when it was made, what your thought process was, if it was shown anywhere. We will only view/listen to one minute of a supporting media content per application, so if submitting links to sound/video please give extracts or note which part you want us to look at/listen to.

CV Please also attach an up to date CV with your relevant art experience.. Max 1 page.

Applications must be received by midnight on Sunday 27th November 2022. 

The panel looking over applications will comprise of:

  • Sophie Chapman (Facilitator of Into the Wild)
  • Andrea Davidson (Director at Chisenhale Studios)

We will interview a short list of applicants in early December, and notify all applicants of our decision by the end of December 2022.