Call now live for Weekender with UK New Artists

CCA has partnered with UK New Artists for a weekender taking place in our city.

• Location: Derry~Londonderry, Northern Ireland
• Dates: 20–23 May 2022
• Venue: Centre for Contemporary Art, Derry~Londonderry
• Application Deadline: Monday 11th April 2022 at midnight

The Weekender residency is organised in partnership between Centre for Contemporary Art and UK New Artists. This will be the fifth iteration of the weekender programme with previous events having taken place in Blackpool (2017 & 2021) St Ives (2018) and Skegness (2019).

This Weekender will be exploring how languages bring people together and keep people apart.

Language is often seen as primary to identity: communities form around shared understandings of the world. Languages have histories and carry memories - one might think here of untranslatable words, oral histories or the sensorial and phonetic specificities of a mother tongue, but also of the politics of language learning - when, where and with what force languages were made dominant, preserved or forgotten. Beyond spoken languages, there’s also other forms of language that bring communities together: specific forms of assembling, gestures, rituals, and embodied communication. Languages exist in time, but also constantly morph and change as political realities and societal settings shift.

Turner Prize winners Array Collective will be present during the Weekender to help us think through these themes, particularly in relation to practices of activism, community-building and politics in the context of Derry~Londonderry. The Weekender is curated by Sophie Mak-Schram.

What am I getting myself into?

The Weekender is a micro-residency: an opportunity to take some time, meet other artists, collaborate and replenish thinking and possible directions for your practice. Other aspects of the Weekender include:

• Periods of walking and talking
• Collective facilitated discussions
• Time to personally test thinking/ideas at CCA or the physical fabric of Derry~Londonderry as a town
• The opportunity to make work-in-progress or experimentation that will be displayed in CCA’s Project Space in the fortnight following the Weekender

Number of Participants & Criteria

We are looking to support a group of 6 artists. We’re interested in artists across disciplines, we are looking for artists with a record of work that explores the one or more of the following:

1. Artists whose work is concerned with language in an expanded sense: perhaps you’re working with movement as a means of communication, silences in formal histories, assembling as a practice, or something else entirely.
2. Artists who see the residency as a stimulating platform to further enrich their own practice and develop their knowledge.
3. Artists with an interest in working with others, with a cross disciplinary approach to producing ideas and outcomes.

Participating artists will be offered

• £250 stipend
• Suitable accommodation in Derry with your own room
• All meals will be provided during the residency
• All flights and travel to and within Northern Ireland
• All travel to and from a UK Airport

Eligibility

• Artists must be within the first 10 years of their professional practice
• Artists from all art forms can apply
• You must be eligible to live, study or work in the UK
• Individuals, collaborators and or collectives (no larger than 3 members) can apply

Further information, including an indicative timetable, information about Derry~Londonderry, the partner organisations and Curator can be found in the brief below. Please read this before making an application.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL BRIEF

To apply please click the link below to fill in a short application form on the UKNA website. We will ask for some basic information and contact details, and then you will need to upload the following:

• A one page CV
• A one page statement outlining how well you feel you meet the brief and criteria and how you would feel you would benefit from being part of the residency programme

APPLY NOW

The form will also ask some equal opportunities questions, but please note that these are for monitoring purposes only. The panel will not see these answers and they will not be used to make a decision on your application.

We are open to receiving applications in a variety of ways in order to make this process accessible to everyone. If you would like to discuss another way to apply, for example via video or audio, please get in touch by emailing hugh@uknewartists.co.uk

All applications are reviewed by a selection panel, comprising partner organisations and members of our Creative Thinktank. Successful applicants will be informed by Tuesday April 19th. Please assume your application has been unsuccessful if you have not heard by Friday April 22nd. We are sorry but we are unable to give feedback on unsuccessful applications due to limited capacity.