Open Call -Global Crit Clinic - Accra 2014

Project conceived by Kianga Ford and Shane Aslan Selzer and coordinated by Foundation for Contemporary Art-Ghana.
 
Project Facilitators: Kianga Ford, Shane Aslan Selzer, Chelsea Knight, Bernard Akoi–Jackson and Miguel Luciano
 
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: 26th April,2014
 
About the Programme
After two successive clinics in Accra, Global Crit Clinic returns to Accra in 2014. Global Crit Clinic (GCC) is a
global peer network of teaching artists working to diversify the field of fine art by offering artists tools for participation. We support locally-connected practice that is conversant with the history of recent art without being confined by it.
 
Our primary vehicle is a 10-day intensive "clinic" in which we share the critical skills and professional practices that are the basis of a contemporary art education in a greatly condensed format. GCC assembles flexible multinational teams of teaching artists to lead group critique, one-on-one mentoring, lectures, and workshops in professional practice, such as: portfolio development, graduate study, writing for artists, documenting your
work, and accessing global resources.
 
This year in Accra we will be adding a video based artist facilitator to our team with the intention to build exposure to video and performance practices through targeted workshops and screenings.The 2014 edition will be open to 12 artists from across West Africa who will be selected to participate through an open call.
 
Workshop Rational
The Ghanaian | African visual art sector is predominantly conservative with most artists working in the somewhat traditional media of painting and sculpture-with little or no knowledge of or interest in artistic practices that use new media or digital technology. With an eye toward encouraging and supporting artists interested in exploring different conceptual and material possibilities especially in the area of lens-based media and other experimental modes of working, the structure of the Global Crit Clinic is rooted in the convergence of different artistic processes-be it painting, sculpture, performance, installation, photography, video, internet, etc. The goal of the clinic is for participants to develop a critical view of their practice and be able to engage in the contemporary art discourse within a local and international context.
 
Workshop Benefits Include:
■ Access to experienced local and international artists
■ One-to-one individual portfolio reviews and feedback about your work
■ Intensive critique sessions that encourage developing new contemporary practices on the African continent
■ Sharing knowledge through curatorial lectures, artists' presentations and critical debate
■ Developing new ways of creative thinking by integrating new elements such as video, performance, installation and sound projects into your work
■ Establishing a peer network of artists committed to developing a context for idea based practices
 
Who can apply?
■ Applications are open to artists from Ghana and other parts of West Africa who have been professionally active for at least 3 years, with a visible commitment to their professional artistic practice.
■ Artists can be working in any media – painting, sculpture, textile, ceramics, photography, video, performance and new media.
 
How to Apply
Submission Requirements:
 
Please indicate your type of work with up to 3 definitions of the following:PNT (painting); PHO (photography); SCL (sculpture); DRW (drawing); INS (installation); SS (site specific installation); VD (video); PRF (performance); MM (multi media); NM (new media); WEB (web based);INT (interactive). If your type of work is not on this list, please state it.
 
Artists are to submit:
Current Artist Resume [including artist statement and bio]
IMAGES: Five (10) jpeg images, at 180 DPI resolution minimum, maximum total file size 250kb. Images must be titled with your last name, first name, number with no spacing: e.g.: mensahkofi1.jpg, mensahkofi2. jpg.
 
Documentation of your work: You can either submit images OR video documentation, NOT both. Please note that if you submit both, your application will be disqualified.We review video documentation ONLY for artists whose work is timebased, interactive, web-based, kinetic, film, video and performance. If you work with installation, site-specific, painting, sculpture and/or drawing, you MUST submit images.
IMPORTANT: we only accept jpegs. Do not submit: Powerpoint presentations, PDF, TIFF, Gif or PSD files.
 
Profile of Host Organization
Foundation for Contemporary Art-Ghana (FCA) is an active network of artists created to offer a platform for the presentation, development and promotion of contemporary art in Ghana. It is a non-profit space that functions as a laboratory, aimed at investigating new positions of creative curatorial and art practice in relation to 'Contemporary African Art' on the continent. Programs at FCA encourage dialogue, experimentation and explorations. Through these avenues,we aspire to develop and expand as we network and collaborate with artists and art organizations on local, regional and international levels. FCA organizes exhibitions, seminars, workshops and issue publications to raise awareness of and develop critical thinking about contemporary art and artists in Ghana.
 
Profiles of Facilitators
 
Shane Aslan Selzer (lead facilitator) is an artist, writer and organizer whose practice develops micro communities where artists can expand on larger social issues such as generosity, exchange and failure. Her new book with Ted Purves, What We Want is Free: Critical Exchanges in Recent Art (SUNY Press 2014) examines a twenty-year history of shops, gifts,dinner parties, petty theft and contract labor through a survey of artists' projects that both occupy and model the forms of exchange within contemporary society.
 
Kianga Ford is a visual artist and writer whose work focuses on the immersive experience of contemporary place.Bringing together cultural and material histories and personal narrative, she works on the edge of "what is true enough" to create informed fictions and environments that contextualize our daily encounters with others in public space. Her works combine design-based installation, cinematic forms, sound, and site-specific research to explore the dynamics and demographics of contemporary social identity, proximity, intimacy and relationship. She has worked and exhibited internationally at venues from Tokyo Wonder Site to LACMA.

She has been supported in her work by awards from Creative Capital, Asian Cultural Council, and the California Community Foundation. She is currently a smARTpower fellow of the U.S. Department of State and Assistant Professor of New Genres in the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons, The New School for Design in New York.
 
Chelsea Knight is an artist whose video based works hover between documentary and fiction. She focuses in particular on the ways we perform ourselves in the everyday. She received her B.A. from Oberlin College and her M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Knight completed residencies at the Whitney Independent Study Program (2010) and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2008), and was a Fulbright Fellow in Italy (2007). She was a 2011-2012 Freund Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis. Knight was a 2010-2011 resident at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace program, a 2012 resident at Triangle Arts Association, and is a 2013-2014 resident at Smack Mellon. Solo exhibitions include: The St. Louis Art Museum, Abrons Art Center, New York, Momenta Art, Brooklyn, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, and Julius Caesar Gallery, Chicago. Knight has exhibited and screened her work in group shows including Nouvelles Vagues at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, Anti-Establishment at Bard CCS Hessel Museum, the Young Artists' Biennial, Bucharest, the 10th Annual Istanbul Biennial, Werkschauhalle Gallery, Leipzig, the Michelangelo Pistoletto Foundation, Biella, Italy, Harvard University, Art in General and the Kitchen, NY.
 
Bernard Akoi-Jackson (b.1979) is an artist and writer who interrogates hybrid post-colonial African identities, through ephemeral, make-shift memorials and performative rituals of the mundane. He graduated with an MFA from the College of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi in 2006. Using critical absurdity, he moves between genres; dance, poetry, installation, photography and video to confront the complexities of his specific cultural moment. In Akoi-Jackson's work, 'jest' is as serious and profound as 'clout,' so that a balanced dose of these become the crux of his expression. His work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions in venues across Ghana, including the Nubuke Foundation Accra; Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon; Goethe-Institut Accra; Centre for National Culture, Kumasi; Alliance Française, Kumasi and Accra. Internationally Bernard Akoi-Jackson‟s work has been shown in Germany at the ACC Galerie, Weimar; Halle 14, Leipzig and Monte dos Ciprestes, Sintra, Portugal. In 2012 his One Minute video: "Marking Time" was featured in a group show at the Slade Research Centre, The Slade School of Fine Art. His writing tracks the development of contemporary Ghanaian and African visual art and culture. He has contributed regularly to ArtFOCUS, Accra, and has written essays for several exhibition catalogues. Since 2006, Akoi-Jackson has facilitated Kofi + Amma e.V Workshops in Ghana and also in Germany. He lives and works in Tema where he also teaches art at the Tema International School.
 
Miguel Luciano has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at the Mercosul Bennial, Brazil; La Grande Halle de la Villette, Paris; El Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; The Ljubljana Biennial, Slovenia; The San Juan Poly-Graphic Triennial, Puerto Rico and The Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. He is the recipient of Louis Comfort Tiffany Award Grant, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Award Grant, NYFA award for painting, and the Artists and Communities Grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. Luciano recently completed a community-based public art project in Kenya through a program called smARTpower, an initiative of the Bronx Museum of Art and the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
 
Workshop Cost
Participation fee GH¢ 200.00
 
All participants are expected to pay the workshop fee which goes towards running the programme.
 
Non-Ghanaian participants are expected to bear their travel costs to and from Accra as well as their living cost for the duration of the programme. Where possible FCA-Ghana will endeavor to subsidize cost of accommodation - subject to receiving funding.
Participants are encouraged to apply for funding from their home countries or other sources to support their travel and living costs. Please don't hesitate to email us if you have any questions. Email all application documents to projects@fcaghana.org.