The Company of Others - Open Call for Artists

The Company of Others – open call for artists

CCA is calling for artists’ proposals to participate in The Company of Others, a pilot project supported by Derry City & Strabane District Council’s Walled City – 400 years programme.

Background

The Company of Others is a project that concerns relationships between colonialism, capitalism, and material culture. It takes its starting point from Derry’s history – of the plantation of the city and surrounding area by the commercial guilds of London – but from there speaks outwardly to other contexts and time-frames. The project is especially interested in the material practices of the livery companies that formed the foundations of British colonialism in Derry.

The 12 guilds that were given control over Derry and the regions adjacent were the Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Merchant Tailors, Haberdashers, Salters, Ironmongers, Vintners, and Clothworkers. The smaller guilds that joined them included the Cordwainers, Dyers, Scriveners, Upholders, Wax Chandlers, Tallow Chandlers, Broderers, Founders, Pewterers, and Fletchers.* The names of these skills and trades evoke a set of practices, materials and processes that we will research in a public event and exhibition. We will work with artists selected through this open call who seek to test out some of these materials and skills through their artistic practices.

Project partner

CCA is partnering with the School of Archaeology in University College Dublin (UCD) to investigate a set of crafts and skills prevalent around the 17th century. Researchers in the School’s Centre for Experimental Archaeology and Material Culture (CEAMC) use a range of analytical techniques to investigate artefacts, residues and samples from the past. Using this information, they replicate objects, structures, features and technologies to test how they were made, used and disposed of. Projects have included, for instance, ceramic vessel production, bronze casting, iron making, leather tanning, textile making, dyeing, house construction and ancient cooking. Please see their Facebook group and Instagram for examples of the diverse projects undertaken.

Call for proposals

The Company of Others will pair artists selected from this open call with experimental archaeology researchers. Artists are invited to propose an area of investigation they would like to develop in relation to the material, historical, and metaphorical agency of these guilds. Artist and researcher will work together to make a public workshop/demonstration on the city walls adjacent to CCA in March 2019. Works produced in this process will subsequently be displayed in CCA’s workshop space. Artists will receive a fee, production and travel budget.

To apply, please complete the application form below including a proposal of no more than 500 words outlining what material process you would like to investigate and the conceptual underpinnings of your project. Within the word count please also outline how the proposal relates to and develops your artistic practice. Artists may submit up to five images to support their application. Please return the completed application form and equal opportunities monitoring form by Midnight on 3 March 2019.

Application Form Word doc | PDF
Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form Word doc | PDF

*a table outlining the Guilds involved in the Plantation of the area can be found here. This table is taken from James Stephen Curl’s The Honourable The Irish Society and the Plantation of Ulster, 1608–2000: The City of London and the Colonisation of County Londonderry in the Province of Ulster in Ireland. A History and Critique (Chichester: Phillimore, 2000).