Building Beyond Cycle 5 call for applications

About the Open Call

This is an opportunity to shape public spaces and communities within your city. Building Beyond is a multi-disciplinary programme that supports creative practices exploring how communities relate to each other and public space in cities, creating opportunities for collectively imagined realities. The space in a city, framed by the various scales of the built environment, is often conceived according to logics of the control of the body. Space in the city is designed and built to control the location, behaviours, and relationships of bodies with each other. African cities are experiencing dynamics such as increasing urbanisation, shifts in response to the high pressures of imposed modernisation, changes in climate, and burgeoning populations, which increases the pressure on this control. Despite this, there are spaces and communities that are reconsidering the logics of control by consolidating the material conditions of the physical city with the dynamics of the living city. Creatives engage with the built environment as an interpretive and alterable world and are poised to move it beyond its perceived confines. They engage with the built environment as the intersection and interaction of people and objects, spaces and material, and personal and shared identities. Their practices offer productive forms that align our city making with the constellations that our urban environments hold. Building Beyond brings together 9 mid-career creatives (± 7-15 years of relevant professional experience) working across diverse mediums, approaches, and interpretations of the overarching theme. Supported by 3 Senior Fellows, this cohort will come together over the course of 9 months to support each participant in their own individual practice and how to activate it in their context; and to facilitate conversation and exchange between the cohort, its growing network, and relevant external practitioners. The programme consists of various online interactive formats, such as peer group sessions, individual feedback, and guest speaker sessions. We will also meet in person once within the programme in the form of a "Lab Week", an intensive fellowship gathering. Lastly, the programme carries a group project for the cohort.

What is Offered

Each participant receives an Award of €10.000 and guidance from the Senior Fellows Fellows to work on the concept for a body of work that is outlined in their application. The programme consists of various online interactive formats, such as peer group sessions, individual feedback, and guest speaker sessions. We will also meet in person once within the programme in the form of a "Lab Week", an intensive fellowship gathering. Lastly, the programme carries a group project for the cohort.

Requirements

individual, mid-career artists and cultural practitioners who: Are from, live and work in our eligible countries on the African continent. Are artists, cultural practitioners, or creatives whose individual practice relates to architecture, design, spatial practice, public space, and urban communities. Have ±7-15 years of relevant professional experience. Are able to communicate in English to keep in line with the communication in the Fellows award programme. Individuals who are arts managers, facilitators, academic researchers or others, without an individual artistic practice, do not fall under this category, and as such are not eligible to apply.

How to Apply

Please see the detailed guideline on the "How to apply" page mentioned above before filling in your application on the Prince Claus Awards Platform via the button below. Kindly note that only completed applications that are submitted via the Prince Claus Awards Platform will be considered.