OPEN CAWCALL! Redcar Palace is delighted to present ‘Common Stars: Art & Starlings’: our Summer exhibition that uses the natural instincts and socialisation techniques of the Starling bird to curate the show.

How do the strategies that Starlings use to survive translate into exhibition techniques and strategies?

We are looking for works that respond to themes such as:

Murmurations - mass,multiplicity and pattern formation
Mimeticism/Mimicry
Complex systems 
Indigeneity/Rootedness/Locality
Scaveging/Salveging/ adaptability  
Irridescence, shimmer
Community and sociability
Mythology 

This is not an exhaustive list, and we are excited to see how artists translate the ways of the Starlings in their work.

Alongside our open call we will have works by selected artists, plus newly commissioned works by Britney Fraser and Carmen Marcus.

Here’s how you can get involved!

There is no submission fee to enter; the work just needs to be about the theme.

We will review all submissions and accept all those that follow this theme, however, we will not accept any works that we deem offensive or contain profanities. This is a family-friendly show.  

TIMELINE

Open call open between 22nd March and 25th April 2026.

We will endeavour to notify you all individually in advance of 25th April but please be advised that CuratorSpace does not send out notifications until after the closing date of the open call.

Delivery of work between 12th May - 12th June (otherwise, we cannot guarantee we will be able to hang your work)

The show opens Friday 3rd July with an opening party to be confirmed closer to the time. It would be lovely to see you at the opening event!

The show is then open Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 4pm until 5th September

Works need to be collected between Tuesday 8th and Saturday 12th September

Artists are responsible for delivering and collecting all works.

**We will accept works by post, but we will not be able to send works back. Please note if works are not collected within 3 months of the end date we reserve the right to dispose of the work as we see fit **

These works could be using any material, drawing, painting, collage, or sculpture - as long as it's on theme, we want it!

Please note due to minimal AV equipment we are unable to show many digital media works, please get in touch with us if you would like to submit work that needs AV.

Please attach images of your work via the submission form here.

A few things to remember:

• Works can be for sale, and we would take 25% on all sales.
• We will accept 2d works up to A2 size (42 x 60cm) or, for sculptural works, 50cm². 

Here's some more information about the context surrounding our exhibition:

The common Starling - Sturnus Vulgaris in Latin. We may pass them every day, barely noticing them. Perhaps they are too common to bear thinking about. With their population numbers rapidly declining, like so many once commonplace bird, let’s pay more attention to them and perhaps we will see how there is nothing vulgar about these remarkable little creatures.

Their iridescent plumage, their spectacular murmurations or their uncanny talent for mimicry. Our Summer exhibition for 2026 is a tribute to Starlings, curated for and with the birds.

At Redcar Palace a choir of starlings perch on the roof of our courtyard, singing in, using the architecture of the building to amplify their voices and filling the space with a beautiful and ever changing cantata that is perhaps as much Kraftwerk as it is Bach in its styling. Each year these starlings are some of our most treasured return visitors, so, as a venue that co-curates with our communities, how do we begin to co-curate an exhibition with starlings.  

More than just an exhibition of pictures of birds, Common Stars looks at the strategies that starlings use in their day to day life and asks how these can translate into artistic strategies. Taking the ideas of mimicry, murmuration, complex systems, scavenging and iridescence as starting points we shall dive into artistic responses to these themes.

The 20th century French composer Olivier Messiaen wrote about the "whistling glissando” of the starling, something that he translated into written music in his 1958 composition “Catalogue of Birds” whilst Mozart kept a pet starling who he taught to sing the opening bars of his 17th piano concerto (a theme which the bird responded with a variation upon which Mozart then transcribed and issued as a new work).