Open Calls @ Root Division
Manufactured Organic: Deadline Monday, January 24, 2011
What are the ethical environmental implications of being an artist? What are the conficts between the creation of enduring artworks and environmental responsibility? How are artists and the art industry implicated in impacting the environment? How can artists creatively mitigate or reverse environmental harm associated with art practices? What alternative materials or processes can artists use to reduce the negative environmental impact of their practice OR in turn positively impact the environment? What does artwork look like when it is not only non-archival, but is actually intended to decompose within our lifetimes? What systems of life support can artists put in place to make the use of organic materials viable in the traditional gallery setting? How does the lifespan of organic media infuence and accentuate the conceptual basis for a piece? [More Info]
Taste 2011: Deadline Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Root Division invites artists working in all genres to submit work for an exhibition called Taste 2011. TASTE is an annual exhibit about food & food-related ideas that focuses on a different theme each year. The theme for this year will be determined according to the submissions received. [More Info]
A Live Animal: Deadline Monday, February 28, 2011
To grasp the sources of aesthetic experience it is […] necessary to have recourse to animal life below the human scale. […] The live animal is fully present, all there, in all of its actions: in its wary glances, its sharp sniffings, its abrupt cocking of ears. – John Dewey, Art As Experience
A Live Animal will explore the relationship between the human animal and other species. The Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist and theorist E.O. Wilson writes: We are human in good part because of the particular way we affiliate with other organisms. They are the matrix in which the human mind originated and […] to the extent that each person can feel like a naturalist, the old excitement of the untrammeled world will be regained.
What do we learn about ourselves when we observe or engage our animal brethren? How are we in conflict with our ‘animalness’ and how does this ‘animalness’ inform contemporary society, science, or spirtuality? What does it mean to be wild? [More Info]
Eligibility Requirements for all three:
Artwork submitted for review (or work very similar in nature to that submitted) must be available for listed exhibition dates.
Artists who are not from the SF Bay Area must be able to cover any costs incurred in getting the work to and from the gallery.
Checklist of application materials:
– 4 images (jpegs: 72 dpi, 600×800 pixels max) (Digital only please; Sorry, no slides) AND/OR 3-minute video clip on CD/DVD for Mac
– Artist resume (1-2 pages max)
– Artist Statement (1 page max)
– SASE (for return of materials if desired)
– $10 check/money order made payable to Root Division (e-payment can also be made via our website: see links above)
– Completed application form (download form from our website: see links above)
Submissions:
Email submissions can be sent to submissions@rootdivision.org. Submissions will also be accepted via USPS & can be mailed to: Root Division, Attn: (Name of show), 3175 17th Street, SF, CA 94110. (Please note that the $10 fee must be on file by call deadline for the email submission to be considered.)
Please call 415.863.7668 or email events@rootdivision.org with any questions.
** Artists selected for exhibitions will be notified within one month of call deadline via email or phone about the inclusion of their work in the show. Curator will conduct studio visits as necessary, but good documentation of work for submission is strongly suggested. **