2024 PRINCE CLAUS FUND: Building Beyond Mentorship (Netherlands)

The Prince Claus Fund offers a fully-funded program in the Netherlands to help you elevate your artistic practice. Applications are now open for the 2024 Prince Claus Fund Building Beyond Mentorship Programme.

The Program:

• Collaborative Learning: Engage with a group of peers to reflect on your work, activate it within your local context, and share ideas across the continent.
• Focus on the Built Environment: Explore the power of artistic interventions in shaping and interpreting the world around us.

Eligibility:

• Mid-career African creative professionals (any discipline)
• Strong artistic record and demonstrably strong leadership potential
• Desire to collaborate and share knowledge with peers
• Are artists, cultural practitioners, or creatives whose individual practice relates to architecture, design, spatial practice, public space, and urban communities. When referring to artists and cultural practitioners we mean people who have an individual artistic practice. We hold a broad definition of art and culture and appreciate interdisciplinary practices. 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.
• Have ±7-15 years of relevant professional experience. The Mentorship Award is meant only for individual artists who, regardless of age, meet the professional experience criteria, counting from the date they started engaging in professional artistic practice to the date of submitting their application.

Benefits:

• Financial Support: Program costs covered, including travel, visa, and accommodation.
• Networking Opportunities: Connect with a vibrant community of African artists.
• Professional Development: Gain new perspectives and enhance your artistic practice.
• The Prince Claus Fund and the Creative Industries Fund NL cover the costs related to the mentorship programme itself, including travel expenses, visa costs, and stay. Individuals are responsible for their own travel insurance. Further details on the covered expenses are communicated with successful applicants at a later date.

The Mentorship Programme Building Beyond will consist of:

• Introduction: aimed at acquainting the group. In two consecutive weeks at the start of the mentorship in January/February 2024, everyone in the group will introduce themselves and the concept/body of work that they will be working on throughout the programme.
• Three Thematic Chapters: taking place in an online format and include guest talks, workshops, reading groups, sub-group sessions, and one-on-one sessions. Each chapter spans approximately 6 to 8 weeks. The content of the chapters will be curated by the mentors based on the practices, projects, and goals of the chosen applicants.
• 2 Lab Weeks: in-person meeting moments that run for 6 days (excluding travel). The goal is to spur a collective feeling amongst the group, get acquainted with the rhythms and challenges of the group’s individual practices, gain inspiration and for participants to share their work with a different city and its practitioners through a range of workshops, site visits, and situated experiences centered on the themes and disciplines of the group. The Lab Weeks will take place in the first and third quarters of the programme.
• Group Project: a collective project aimed at reflecting the group’s individual and collective interactions and developments throughout the mentorship. The group project goes beyond documenting what has happened during the programme, and instead provides a space where the group can express their creative processes and exchanges to a broader audience. The group project consists of a publication element and a website element.
• Closing Chapter: the programme comes to a close in a similar format to how it began, with online presentations from all of the participants in which they highlight where their body of work has developed and how they intend to engage with it in the future. These presentations are semi-public.

How to Apply:

• Visit the Prince Claus Fund website (https://princeclausfund.org/) for detailed information and application deadlines.

Don’t miss this chance! Apply and take your artistic journey to the next level!

Application Deadline: 14 May 2024, 17.00 Amsterdam time

Source: OFA