Call for Artists: Present Futures - Experiments in Feminist Futurity
A contemporary art exhibition envisioning feminist solidarities across space and time, in everyday life, with an outlook towards “the future we want to see, right now, in the present”
“Present Futures: Experiments in Feminist Futurity” is a contemporary art exhibition that will open the two-day Transnational Feminist Networks Symposium from September 12-13th, 2024 at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. The exhibition will be displayed in The Forum of the Annenberg School for Communication (ASC) during the fall semester, from mid-August to late November 2024. Symposium organizers seek submissions from artists who creatively engage the symposium's themes, specifically envisioning feminist solidarities across space and time, in everyday life, with an outlook towards “the future we want to see, right now, in the present.” Follow on Instagram for updates: @tfn_presentfutures
Selected artists will receive a $250 honorarium*
Submission Guidelines
We encourage submissions from up-and-coming Philadelphia-based artists and international artists, especially those who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQIA, LatinX, and artists with disabilities.
We accept a diverse array of finished pieces on canvas, paper, photographs, and installations, including video and audio, as well as, craftivism, quilt work, textiles, and more.
Artists will be selected by the Transnational Feminist Networks symposium committee and will be awarded an honorarium of $250**
**Please note that symposium organizers will also be displaying their work. Honorariums, however, are reserved for artists whose submission was selected to participate.
Please submit the following documents with your application:
- 250-word artist statement
- 250 artist bio
- PDF file of 3-5 images with titles, dimensions, weight, and materials used
- Explain if the piece will need audio/visual support, printing, and/or shipping support***
- We accept submissions in English or Spanish
The deadline to submit your application is July 1st, 2024. Artists will be notified by July 15th, 2024. Please ensure that all accepted submissions are delivered to organizers by 15th August.
Further details regarding logistics will be shared with the artists once the decisions have been announced.
***If you are outside Philadelphia, please consider the logistics of submitting physical artwork. Limited resources are available for printing and shipping costs.
If you have any questions, please reach out! tfnsymposium@gmail.com
Exhibition Inspiration
In recent years, popular mobilizations like #MeToo, the traveling protest chant ‘Un violador en tu camino,’ and the International Women’s March have contributed to a global feminist resurgence. These moments of heightened visibility inspire, uplift, and illuminate pressing concerns facing women and gender-diverse individuals around the world but often eclipse the ongoing work at the grassroots level amidst seemingly insurmountable odds. Present Futures: Experiments in Feminist Futurity aims to highlight the undercurrents of popular feminisms — the acts, rituals, and practices that sustain transnational feminist solidarities and networks of care.
Beyond a sense of hope for a future we’d like to see from the top-down, our exhibition is inspired by Tina Campt’s proposal for a “grammar of black feminist futurity” that attends to the undercurrents of futurity evident in the present, the everyday, and the quotidian. She describes this revolutionary grammar (in the future real conditional) as a performance of a future that has not yet happened but must. Present Futures: Experiments in Feminist Futurity invites artists to meditate upon the quieter registers of feminist futurity that we can begin to imagine, live, and embody in the present.
We seek submissions that interpret the quotidian practices of the everyday as a means of consistently cultivating radical feminist knowledges, sustaining networks of care, and articulating communal resistance, within and beyond territorial borders, in often unspectacular and unglamorous ways.
Questions in the “Grammar of Black Feminist Futurity”*
- How do we live the future that must be while inhabiting the foreclosures of the present?
- What existing practices, rituals, and feminist knowledges actively demonstrate these present futures?
- What present futures exist within the margins of imperialism & global patriarchy?
- How are present futures networked across space and time?
*Campt, T. M. (2017). Listening to Images.
Artist Agreement & Waiver of Liability:
The location of the exhibition is not a formal art gallery. While the Annenberg School for Communication has security stationed throughout the building for student, faculty, and staff safety, it does not have designated security personnel to ensure displayed art pieces are not stolen or tampered with. While this has generally not been an issue, we ask that all selected artists sign the following “Artist Agreement & Waiver of Liability” to acknowledge the risks of showing work at the Annenberg School.
Important Dates:
- Application Deadline: July 1, 2024
- Artists Notification Date: July 15, 2024
- Deadline to Accept Offer & Submit Signed Waiver: Aug 1, 2024
- Art Drop-Off****: August 10 - 15, 2024
- Installation: August 20, 2024
- Exhibition Opening: September 12, 2024
- Transnational Networks Symposium: September 12-13, 2024
- De-Installation: November 20, 2024
- Art Pick-Up****: November 20 - 24, 2024
**** Arrangements must be made with organizers. Further details regarding logistics will be shared with the artists once the notifications have been announced.
Co-sponsored by the Annenberg Center for Collaborative Communication (C3) & the Center for the Advancement of Global Communication (CARGC) with additional support from the Center for Digital Culture & Society (CDCS), the Wolf Humanities Center and the Center for Latin American and LatinX Studies (CLALS).
If you have any questions, please contact us at tfnsymposium@gmail.com.
