Call for proposals: 2022 Spier Light Art festival in SA

This year’s festival seeks to celebrate people’s unflinching resilience and invites participants to reflect on enchantment and exuberance as a way to contribute to the 2021 edition’s curatorial agenda.

Submission requirements and process

Expressions of interest must include:

• Artist/collective/studio biographies of all involved in the project (200 words).
• A short response to at least one of the themes (300 words).
• A concise description of the work including concept sketches (300 words).
• A description of the audience interaction/engagement with the work if not a video (300 words).
• A provisional budget, indicating whether it is to be funded completely or in part by the Spier Arts Trust, and web links to and/or images of the proposed work or, if not already developed, examples of previous work.

Applicants should email the expression of interest to the project manager at lightart@spier.co.za before 15 October.

A more thorough proposal may be requested after the shortlist is announced.

Themes may include:

• Enchantment and exuberance.
• Resilience (not only relating to COVID-19).
• The current socio-political landscape.
• Spier Light Art’s relationship to technology and its disruptive influence.
• Spier as a working wine farm, its history and its relationship to the region.

Categories of work may include:

• Site-specific work (designed for specific places on Spier Wine Farm).
• Sculptural, object-based work.
• Interactive art (following COVID-19 protocols).
• Digital works that foreground technology.
• Video art.

Onsite briefing

The curatorial team will hold an onsite briefing on 11 September 2021 at 10am starting at the Manor House. Participants should RSVP to lightart@spier.co.za before 8 September 2021.

NOTE: Interactive works need to adhere to COVID-19 safety protocols on touching shared spaces and surfaces, as well as social distancing. All work will be installed in outside spaces and must be fully weatherproof.

The Spier Arts Trust will completely or partially fund installations chosen by the selection committee, headed by curator Jay Pather.

“Light art installations are mercurial by nature. Transcending the confines of their materiality, light art works are also defined by what they illuminate or hide,” curators Jay Pather and Vaughn Sadie said. “These experiences – walking and pausing, catching a glimpse or settling down to absorb – invited introspection, adventure and playfulness. Scattered across the Spier estate, each work offered an opportunity to experience the complex, multihued, multifaceted texture of our environment and ourselves.”

View the original call here.