Call for Prince Claus Seed Awards 2024 is open now!!!
The Prince Claus Fund is excited to open the call for applications for the annual Prince Claus Seed Awards 2024: amplifying the work of emerging artists who use the power of culture for positive change.
Artists wield the transformative power of culture to act, to live, and to imagine. From challenging norms through free expression and creating safe spaces, to initiating cooperation in the face of global crises, and asserting alternative narratives: emerging artists and cultural practitioners bring in new waves of ideas, perspectives, and energy to the positive force of culture. They deserve a chance to experiment, find their path and their communities, and gain momentum in their work. The Seed Awards aim to support this journey.
Each year, the Prince Claus Fund grants Seed Awards to 100 emerging artists who work in contexts where cultural expression is under pressure. The Seed Award is intended to support their personal and artistic development, amplify their talent, and spark a new wave of changemakers.
Each Seed Award recipient will receive an award of €5.000 to invest in developing their artistic and cultural practice on their own terms.
This is a trust-based grant, which means Seed Award recipients can decide the best way to utilise the support for their artistic and cultural development: be it through fostering new perspectives, connections, investing in materials for their practice, or simply taking some time with reduced financial pressures to be able to experiment and focus on their artistic practice.
The Seed Awards offer support to emerging artists and cultural practitioners who are talented, engaged, and determined to improve their contexts and societies through their socially and politically engaged work. We are especially interested in supporting artists and cultural practitioners with innovative, grounded, and experimental art practices that are inclusive and diverse in their process, their implementation, and their reach.
Location:
OnlineBenefits
- Each recipient of the Seed Award will receive €5.000 in a trust-based grant to invest in the development of their artistic and cultural practice. Examples of activities that contribute to the candidate’s practice are:
- participation in residency programmes, festivals, workshops, etc.;
- time and space for the development of a personal project;
- an investment into materials needed for ongoing work;
- providing compensation for collaborators.
- The Seed Award is not restricted to a pre-decided budget or plan, but it must be used for the development of the candidate’s artistic or cultural practice. Examples of expenses that are not eligible are:
- tuition fees for participation in activities that focus on the academic sector or represent traditional approaches to research and education (e.g. school/university programmes, scholarships, or education firmly located within a traditional institution).
Eligibilities
With this call for applications the Prince Claus Fund invites artists and cultural practitioners who:
- are an early career artist or cultural practitioner in the first 1–5 years of the candidate’s professional artistic/cultural career. They do not include years of study in this estimation and only consider the years in which the candidate has been practicing professionally;
- are from, living in, and working in countries on the Eligible Country List.
- are practicing as an individual artist or cultural practitioner. They do not accept applications from collectives, groups, and organisations;
- would receive an award from the Prince Claus Fund for the first time. They grant Seed Awards on a one-time-only basis; successful Awardees from previous years are not eligible for another Seed Award. Please note that if the candidate has applied for a Seed Award in the past and have not been granted the Award, they welcome the candidate to apply again this year;
- have an artistic/cultural practice that is dedicated to addressing social/political topics that are relevant to the candidate’s local context. They do not accept applications for work that is not societally engaged.
- have an artistic or cultural practice that is embedded in the field of art and culture. They do not accept applications from individuals whose work is: largely embedded in academia and revolves around academic research and/or largely embedded in the field of development.
Application Process
- The candidate can apply for the Seed Award by submitting an application form through the Prince Claus Awards Platform.
- The application form includes questions relating to the candidate’s practice. The Prince Claus Fund also asks for samples of the candidate’s work, a C.V. and reference letter, and a pitch answering the question: What drives the candidate as an artist?
- Please note that in line with our capacity as an organisation they can only accept applications in English.
- HOW TO APPLY
- Create an account on the Prince Claus Awards Platform and start a ‘New Submission’ for the Prince Claus Seed Awards;
- Fill in all of the required fields and attachments. The candidate can work on, and make changes to the application form up until the deadline. Please make sure that the candidate submits the application prior to the deadline as only completed and submitted applications will be considered. Please note that once the candidate has submitted the application, they will not be able to make amendments to it.
- Once the candidate has submitted their application on the Prince Claus Awards Platform, check that they have received an automatic email confirmation.
- The deadline for applications is January 16, 2024, at 23:59 Amsterdam Time. The Prince Claus Fund understands that applicants might have intermittent access to the internet or unstable connections, so please keep this in mind when planning the candidate’s submission. They encourage the candidate to apply well before the deadline as their online system can be busy on the date of the deadline and closes automatically at 23:59, and they cannot accept any applications after that point.
- If the candidate has any questions along the way, please refer to our FAQ or e-mail the prince claus fund at [email protected].
- To successfully complete an application, the candidate will need to provide and submit the following:
- a completed application form which includes the candidate’s personal details as well as information about their practice;
- a pitch that answers the question: What drives the candidate as an artist/cultural practitioner? This pitch can be submitted in either video or audio format and should be a maximum of 3 minutes long. If the candidate is not able to provide a pitch in audio or video form, please get in touch with the fund at [email protected] and they will be happy to assist in finding a form that works best for the candidate’s circumstance;
- a reference letter from a person or organisation that knows the candidate’s work and/or has worked with them in the past (this should be signed and contain the contact details of the referee);
- an updated C.V.;
- supporting materials that are relevant to practice, for example, samples of the candidate’s artistic/cultural work (videos, images, texts, portfolio), reviews, and interviews.
- Please note that more focused applications tend to be the applications that are successful. Keep the candidate’s application focused on the main themes, disciplines, and methodologies in their practice.
- Please note that in line with the fund’s capacity as an organisation they can only accept applications in English.
- However, supporting materials can be submitted in the candidate’s language of preference and video pitches can be recorded in the candidate’s language of preference and subtitled to English. (For information, softwares such as Otter, Subly, Jubler and Amara provide free transcript and subtitling tools).
Application Deadline: January 16, 2024
Application ClosedOfficial link
