MAIA are looking for a West Midlands based artist to explore how their practice co-informs a world towards liberation.
MAIA is an artist-led social justice organisation, working from their home city, Birmingham, UK. Their work asks what it takes to move from imagination to liberation, exploring the role of artists in that movement. They explore this in community, through the creation of spaces, public programmes and resources, where Black imagination and culture are the catalysts. Through the associateship, we are looking to develop a relationship with a West Midlands-based artist, supporting them to explore critically, and at depth, how their creative practice can be a tool for world building.
The Associate Artist will be involved in different parts of MAIA’s programme from July 2023 to March 2024. Through MAIA’s programmes and broader work, they will connect and build relationships with artists, practitioners and organisers across the world who are orienting towards liberation. MAIA will then support the Associate Artist to curate a two-week Radical Imagination Lab, exploring a line of enquiry which has emerged during the associateship, due to be delivered in Feb 2024.
Key Info
- July 2023 – March 2024
- £5000 bursary
- For West Midlands-based artists (including filmmakers)
- Access and travel costs supported by MAIA
- Three reflective pieces to be shared across the 9 months (these can be 3 short films)
- Co-curate two weeks of events (Associate’s Lab) with £5000 budget
Key Dates
- Fellow’s Radical Imagination Lab 23rd October 2023 – 10th December 2023
- Delivery of Associate’s Lab 26th February 2024 – 27th March 2024
Main Aims for the Associate Artist
To develop a deeply collaboratively relationship with MAIA, exploring culture as the starting point for how we learn, exchange and practice pathways to liberation.
To co-curate programmes and make work in response to the questions and ideas which emerge during the relationship.
To be immersed in MAIA’s programme wherever possible, making connections with and co-informing the work.
To document the journey across the 9 months, offering three reflective pieces which can be shared publicly.
To participate in the Fellows Lab during Autumn, learning from the curation process and programme.
To collaborate with MAIA to co-curate a two-week Radical Imagination Lab in 2024, with a budget of £5000, due to be delivered in Feb next year.
Access and Equal Opportunity
MAIA is a committed advocate of equity, justice and equal opportunity – we see this as integral to our mission. In transforming conditions and creating new paradigms for our society, we know this practice must be centred on the experiences of those who have been most oppressed by the current systems. This means we actively encourage applications from people racialised as Black, people of colour, trans and genderqueer people and D/disabled people.
To Apply
Please read the Associate Artist pack in full for all details on the role before applying.
To apply, please either:
1. Fill out this Google Form
2. Email in a Video Application to contact@maiagroup.co which responds to these questions (using ‘Associate Artist’ as the subject heading).
Applications close 1st June (11:59pm).
Interviews 7th + 8th June.
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