Taking place from the 4th -7th October 2018, we are looking for an art collective, studio group or artist-led project space, based in the North, to submit a proposal to run an exhibition, performance or event as part of the Middlesbrough Art Weekender programme.

The curatorial thematic of the weekend is around the idea of connectivity.

Submission Outline: 

Middlesbrough Art Weekender aims to promote collectives, studios and project spaces based in the North of England. Each project should host at least one public facing event in the space.

What to submit:

• up to 5 images/sound/video files of the work or your practice
• a 250-word (max) bio of the collective/studio/project space
• names and information of each member, if relevant
• 500-word (max) proposal outlining the plan and a time frame of events
• CV of any previous projects/artistic practice
• Detailed budget breakdown

Financial details/payment: There is a budget of up to £2000. There is no cost for application.

Deadline for applications: August 20th.

Successful applicants will be informed by September 1st 2018 and must have work ready for install by October 1st.

Thematics 

Middlesbrough Art Weekender 2018’s approach focuses on what is meant by connectivity in art practice. We are taking connectivity as a way of thinking and navigating and making work. MAW2018 is focusing on the spaces where interdisciplinary practices happen and how these experiences create opportunity for possibilities to question how networks form and how we connect. Middlesbrough is the central hotspot for a longer investigation into collaborative making and practices that use multiple mediums and tools to produce avenues for connected practices.

The theme of connectivity is attempting to introduce a narrative. This narrative is an attempt to contextualise what might be a community in its separate nodes of a festival, the spate of meta possibilities and speculative positions of practice. This is questioning how something that is based on a critical mass as a festival can function as an intersecting web of difference and similarities. What is meant by a web is how the multiple parts of the festival can intersect and influence art works, location, performance as a way of understanding place. Connectivity as a festival is investigating the intersections between practices, between contemporary art and theatre between performance and sound.

In terms of the curatorial context for MAW2018 the approach is seeing each work, event, happening as nodes that are speculative and form a networked web across Middlesbrough. The festival is an attempt to ask what connects a community? Through the practices and public programming the weekend wants to focus on understanding the differences between: Communities of data / Communities of things / Communities of individuals. The aim is develop on current trends in community art practices and build a networked show of performances, sound, installation and events.