Call for Submissions: Uncommon Common Art 2019

Call for Submissions: Uncommon Common Art 2019

Uncommon Common Art (UCA) is an annual site responsive art project that brings visual art out of institutions and into rural communities of Kings County, Nova Scotia between June 1 and October 30. This free event, which is starting its twelfth year, highlights the exceptional locations of the Minas Basin and Annapolis Valley. UCA guidebooks lead residents and visitors in exploring the art installations in our communities, nature trails, and country lanes. Our projects expand the relationship between art and nature, and constantly work to make visual art and physical activity a more important part of life in Kings County.

2019 Concept: Wearing the Land
Curated by Bonnie Baker (bonniebakerstudio.com)

UCA invites artists to develop temporary outdoor installations animated by the theme of Wearing the Land, expressing the idea of reciprocity between the landscape of King’s County, Nova Scotia, and the people who live there.

People have passed through, lived in, and cultivated this region for millennia. Our habits of movement wear paths and tracks along the land; sweeps of cultivated fields, flattened forest, shorelines reconstructed, and waterways rerouted (or polluted) are the purposeful indications of ourselves on the landscape. We wear the land with the marks of our occupation, whether temporary or permanent, settler or original inhabitant, urbanite or rural dweller, capitalist or worker.

Taking this notion a step further, you might say that in shaping the land, the land shapes us. How we occupy and move through a landscape impresses itself upon our imaginations, our minds, and our identities as well as our bodies.

In proposing the theme of Wearing the Land, UCA asks artists to consider the relationship between landscape and the people who inhabit it with a broad eye and, to quote Robert MacFarlane, to think of it as the relationship between the landscape and the human heart.

Location: All installations are to be located in Kings County, Nova Scotia and are to be accessible to the public. If on private land the artist must seek written approval of the landowner.

Support: Fees to artist based on CARFAC guidelines.

Submissions: This is a visual art project and all media are welcome. Installations are to be temporary. Artwork is to be completed and installed by May 25 and removed after October 30, 2018.

Proposal will be juried on the following criteria maximum 30 points:

1. visual impact 10 points,
2. relationship to the concept 5 points,
3. relationship to the location 7 points,
4. viability of completion 5 points,
5. artists relationship to Kings County 3 points.

Submission:
1. Completion of the attached form.
2. Examples of 3 to 10 related artworks.
3. Current CV no more that 3 pages.

Email submissions to uncommoncommonart@gmail.com, subject line: 2019 submission.

Submission deadline: October 14, 2018: A jury composed of professional artists and community members will select the artists for the exhibition. Applicants will be notified November 1, 2018.

Submission Information sessions:
Halifax: September 24, 7:30 to 8:30, VANS office, 1113 Marginal Road
Wolfville: September 25, 7:30 to 8:30, Irving Centre 32 University Ave.