Call for applications
Moving Narratives is a programme developed in collaboration with British Council, which supports creative practices committed to moving the world towards equitable and just futures.
Are you an artist or cultural practitioner recentring marginalised histories or challenging contemporary narratives? Then we invite you to apply for Cycle 2 of Moving Narratives: a multi-disciplinary programme, which supports artists to explore and strengthen creative practices that reconsider historical legacies and explore emancipatory movements.
Dominant discourses and one-sided worldviews influence the organisation of society, politics, and individual life. This can lead to the exclusion of diverse experiences and perspectives, denying space for critical voices and sustaining social inequalities. Creative practices can play a crucial role in challenging the status quo and recentring marginalised narratives. By working with nuanced perspectives that show social and political complexities, artists have the power to expand our understanding of the past and reimagine our visions of the future.
Programme
A partnership between the Prince Claus Fund and British Council, each year Moving Narratives brings together 12 socially and politically engaged mid-career artists and cultural practitioners working across diverse mediums and approaches. Different interpretations of the mentorship’s overarching theme are welcomed.
Supported by four mentors, participants are encouraged to collectively experiment, exchange, and develop artistic strategies that address dominant narratives and the inequalities they sustain. We invite applications from artists who are active within their local communities, and we prioritise practices that focus on intersectional and critical approaches that challenge dominant worldviews and discourses.
To foster conversations and collaborations within the cohort, and to support each artist in their practice, the programme includes workshops, reading groups, guest talks, and peer-to-peer review sessions. The mentors guide participants and provide constructive feedback, to encourage exploration and to challenge and support their practice. Most of the activities are online, but the cohort comes together twice in person for the Lab Weeks (six-day intensive mentoring sessions). Within the programme, the cohort collectively creates a joint project in the form of a printed publication and online platform.
Additionally, each participant receives an award of €10.000 to work on the project or body of work outlined in their application. While the grant is not limited to a strict project plan or budget, the participant’s proposed project is used as a baseline for the programme and informs the sessions with the mentors.
Eligibility
With this open call we invite applications from individual, experienced artists and cultural practitioners who:
Are from, live and work in our eligible countries;
Are artists, cultural practitioners, or creatives whose practice highlights marginalised histories that challenge dominant worldviews. The Prince Claus Fund and British Council hold a broad understanding of arts and culture. When referring to artists and cultural practitioners, we mean people who have an individual artistic practice. Individuals who are arts managers, facilitators, academic researchers or others, without an individual artistic practice, do not fall under this category, and are not eligible to apply.
Have between 7-15 years of relevant professional experience. Moving Narratives is meant only for individual artists who, regardless of age, meet the professional experience criteria, counting from the date they started engaging in a professional artistic practice to the date of submitting their application.
Due to the nature of the programme, applicants need to be able to communicate in English.
