RELAY Mentorship Programme – Call for Artists by March 5th

PhotoIreland have opened a call for Irish and Ireland-based artists to join a new artist-driven mentorship programme RELAY, running over a period of three months April, May, and June and to present the resulting output during PhotoIreland Festival in July-August 2023. Deadline for submissions is 5th March at 6pm.

RELAY is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Dublin City Council, and The Digital Hub. The RELAY mentorship programme for the 14th edition of PhotoIreland Festival is open specifically for artists of the African diaspora living in Ireland. The facilitator selected for the 2023 mentorship programme is artist Alice Rekab.

PhotoIreland invites all artists who consider themselves emerging or feel they may not receive the same opportunities or visibility as their peers to participate and benefit from the programme. Some examples of such artists may be recent graduates, those who are making a career change, artists who are self-trained, those who are parents, or who self-identify as part of an underrepresented community.

PhotoIreland focuses on practices engaging broadly with representation, identity, and the image, and with RELAY, it encourages cross-disciplinary approaches; it is aimed at those who wish to experiment and expand the ways in which they make their work and to cultivate new ideas on what they make and how it is presented or seen and experienced in the world. Artists of all visual arts practices are invited to apply, from filmmaking, textile, painting, photography, sculpture, performance etc.

The mentorship programme will reflect and engage every year with the changing themes and ambitions of PhotoIreland Festival, which in 2023 aims to draw conversations from the African diaspora in Ireland. Details about PhotoIreland Festival 2023 announced soon.

Criteria

• The RELAY mentorship programme for the 14th edition of PhotoIreland Festival is open specifically for artists of the African diaspora living in Ireland.
• Submissions are free and open to artists based on the island of Ireland, working in the arts at any level, who feel their practice is at a suitable stage to avail of this opportunity.
• Artists must show a track record of a practice. Even if not extensive, we are looking for evidence of dedication and serious intention to your work.
• The selected artists are expected to commit to the programme over the three months of the mentorship. Artists’ contracts will be provided to all participants. The engagement will be a hybrid between online and in-person, group, and individual meetings, to fit the individual artists and group needs.

What does PhotoIreland provide?

• Three-month mentorship by artist Alice Rekab.
• Artist fee of €2,000 to each participant.
• Production budget for the exhibition.
• Local travel costs to attend in-person sessions.
• Participation in group presentation as part of PhotoIreland Festival 2023.
• A temporary studio space for the period of the mentorship, kindly supported by The Digital Hub.
• A research space in Dublin at The Library Project, providing access to PhotoIreland’s Collection of photobooks and core visual culture resources.
• Curatorial and administrative support throughout the programme.

Application Process

Three artists will be selected by PhotoIreland and mentor Alice Rekab. Applicants should send the following documents to pif.submissions@gmail.com

• A brief description of who you are, the work you make and why you make it, such as an artist statement, or a personal reflection on where you feel your practice currently sits. 250 words max.
• Portfolio of 4 artworks, through a PDF or an online link. You may also wish to use a file transfer service such as WeTransfer or Dropbox.
• A brief description of what you would like to focus on during the mentorship—here you can talk about a specific project or art piece you may wish to develop, or what kind of professional development guidance you are seeking.
• Optional: Equal Opportunities form. This is not mandatory and can be sent separately to your application. The data is collated for monitoring purposes only.
• Optional: if you have any accessibility needs, please outline them with your submission.

Read more about PhotoIreland at photoireland.org