Selection process for the Director of the AAVC Private Foundation and Hangar (2025-2029).
The AAVC Private Foundation was legally established on March 5, 2003 and is classified as a private foundation.
The creation of the AAVC Private Foundation arose at the time from the need of the visual artists’ sector to articulate a centre that would offer services adapted to all phases of the artistic production process and, at the same time, would cover many of the needs derived from creation.
According to its statutes, the Foundation aims to provide services of a welfare nature and to support training, research, creation, production and dissemination of contemporary artistic practices, in order to contribute to the social knowledge of contemporary art.
Hangar has a specialised team that enables the day-to-day running of its various laboratories, residencies and programmes. A permanent jury, which remains in place for three years, has detailed knowledge of the centre and how it works. Together with the management, it is responsible for deciding on calls for applications for long and medium-term residencies, as well as the artistic research grant. In addition, experts are invited from time to time to deal with the rest of the public calls.
The AAVC Private Foundation has an annual budget of around € 800,000, made up of public funds (ICUB-OSIC 64.27% and project grants 12.06%), private funds (9.89%) and its own funds (13.79%), which are distributed as follows: structural costs (human resources, materials, insurance, maintenance and professional services related to the structure: 62. 77%), internationalisation and artistic mobility programmes (6.66%), grants (5.54%), programmes for resident artists and collectives (7.92%), research programmes (11.13%) and other expenditure (5.98%). During the period 2025-2027, the Foundation will receive and have to manage an extraordinary budget for the realisation of the works in Hall 1 (see point 7).
Hangar is the main programme of the AAVC Private Foundation, which manages it. The Foundation’s governing body is the Board of Trustees, made up of artists and other professionals from the curatorial, museum and academic world. This governing body, the Matronato, as it calls itself, is renewed every three years, the next renewal being in January 2027.
Every four years, the AAVC Private Foundation organizes a competition to select the director of Hangar and the Foundation. Therefore, candidates should be aware that the position they are applying for entails a dual line of responsibility: the management of the production and research center, as well as the direction of the Foundation. Additionally, the role involves both content management and overall administrative leadership.
Working guidelines for the next four years for the management and the Board of Trustees:
1. To give continuity to the ongoing process of renewing the Hangar’s governance, based on a process of listening to the institution’s close and wider community, with particular emphasis on the local, national and international artistic context, and with associations such as the PAAC. To create sustainable and democratic forms of relationship between the Board of Trustees, staff, artists and long-term resident projects.
2. Find a sustainable relationship between the community that inhabits Hangar (resident artists, projects, wetlab, and obitant members), the local/global artistic context, and the individuals and communities that engage intermittently with the Center, taking into account both long-term users and residents.
3. Promote policies and operational methods that encourage the permeability of the institution with respect to the context and current social and urban challenges.
4. Study the necessary economic changes and seek resources to make it feasible to reduce workshop usage fees, with the aim of achieving free access, within the framework of a rental, housing, and precariousness crisis, in dialogue with the artists in this type of residency. This should involve rethinking the model of rights and responsibilities for all users of the institution.
5. Over the past four years, Hangar has ensured the progressive improvement of labor conditions for all workers. Sustaining this objective will be crucial to safeguarding purchasing power in the context of inflation.
6. Exemplify the fight against the precariousness of artists, cultural agents, collaborators, and workers, also considering all forms of vulnerability and violence toward marginalized communities; such as facilitating work-life balance for caregivers, people with dependents, those in irregular administrative situations, among others that might create disadvantages or inequity in access to artistic practice.
7. Properly address the maintenance process for the spaces. During the period 2025-2027, building works are planned to redistribute multipurpose spaces, improve security and infrastructure, and upgrade the climate control systems of Nave 1 (1,964.4 m²), planned in several phases, during which the economic balance of the institution must be maintained.
8. Thirty years of Hangar (2027): assess the possibility, appropriateness, or significance of this anniversary in relation to the history and memory of the institution.
Professional assignment
The AAVC Private Foundation is seeking a professional, a group of individuals, or a committee with experience in the arts sector to lead the direction of the institution, with the intention to continue developing a unique and distinct project. The professional assignment for the new leadership, which will cover a four-year period (April 20, 2025 – April 19, 2029), should be based on an analysis of the Foundation and the center itself, the needs of the local artistic context, and the potential of both the Foundation and Hangar in relation to these factors.
In the case of a group of individuals or a committee, they must designate a representative to assume executive leadership in the areas of finance, organization, and human resources. The Board of Trustees will communicate the operational rules of this body to the group or committee.
Responsibilities
The director/manager will be responsible for:
1. Complying with the Code of Good Professional Practices in the Visual Arts approved by the Ministry of Culture in 2008, and ensuring the physical and moral integrity of Hangar’s workers. The leadership should manage the Foundation based on ethical principles and values, ensuring no discrimination of any member based on class, origin, gender identity, or any other factor.
2. Leading the Hangar team, providing support to each member in the coordinated achievement of common goals.
Currently, Hangar has a professional team of 12 people with various types of contracts and working hours. The Hangar team operates within a fully horizontal structure, with well-defined and limited roles. Due to the specificity of the team’s functions, there is no pyramid-like structure, and the task of the leadership is to coordinate the team and supervise their tasks. The director has the authority to examine the center’s organizational chart and the team’s responsibilities with the aim of improving, reorganizing, and/or expanding the technical team, as long as it responds to the center’s needs and the program of the candidate. This will be done in negotiation with the affected individuals and with the approval of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees.
3. Exploring and encouraging new forms of artistic research and production.
4. Developing and optimizing programs, services, spaces, and projects in collaboration with the Hangar team and in coordination with the Board of Trustees to:
• Explore contemporary creative phenomena.
• Foster research networks.
• Explore, generate, and promote new quality and accessible services for the artistic community.
• Disseminate and make visible the work of resident artists both nationally and internationally.
• Strengthen the range of workshops for artists or projects (long- and medium-term residencies).
• Drive and adapt laboratories to contemporary artistic practices.
• Organize the temporary use of multipurpose spaces.
• Provide specific advice for projects.
• Drive the strategic residency and international exchange program.
• Develop programming for public activities (workshops, presentations, debates, meetings with professionals, etc.).
• Recognize resident artists and collaborators as professionals and researchers, acknowledging their contributions with fair remuneration, following the PAAC rate guidelines for activities conducted at the center.
5. The following management tasks will be the responsibility of the center’s director:
• Prepare and propose the budget and the income and expenditure plan for the center’s operation, utilizing both public and private resources, which must be approved by the Foundation’s Board of Trustees.
• Diversify and increase financial resources in three areas: public grants, sponsorships/patronage, and self-generated funds. • Monitor the center’s treasury and manage its finances.
• Write the annual project and adapt the Hangar budget for submission to the center’s structural grants.
• Prepare the annual report and supervise the justification of various grants.
• Monitor and control the Foundation’s administrative, fiscal, and legal management, with the support of various advisors.
• Ensure that public, private, and self-generated resources are transparently and appropriately made accessible to the team, residents, and users.
6. The direction will engage in the generation and maintenance of relationships with institutions and the associative and cultural fabric at the national and international levels, maintaining and expanding participation in contextual networks (Hac Te, Red ACTS, Fàbriques de Creació, Xarxaprod).
7. Coordinate regular and extraordinary meetings of the Board of Trustees.
8. Engage in improving the center’s governance.
9. Monitor any structural works and the maintenance of Hangar’s buildings. It is important to note that between 2025 and 2027, there are plans for the improvement and climate control of the Nave 1 facilities and the redistribution of multipurpose spaces on the ground floor of the building.
Professional Profile and Requirements
The professional profile for the Director of Hangar is that of an individual or group of individuals with expertise in cultural management who are willing to take on the professional role outlined above and who meet the following requirements:
• Demonstrated knowledge in the field of contemporary artistic practices.
• Proven knowledge of research networks.
• Familiarity with the local artistic context.
• Proven experience in cultural project management, international relations and communications.
• Proven experience in financial management, fundraising, and resource mobilization.
• Strong communication, negotiation, and planning skills.
• Leadership ability, team management, and delegation skills.
• Ability to work horizontally and in networks.
• Capacity to represent Hangar in all areas.
• Fluency in written and spoken Catalan (or the commitment to reach level C in Catalan within the next two years).
• High level of written and spoken English.
• Knowledge of additional languages will be valued.
• Knowledge of accounting programmes such as Excel or similar will be valued.
• Previous experience in overseeing or managing architectural regeneration processes in cultural spaces will be valued.
Conditions
• Full-time, exclusive commitment.
• Start date in 20 April 2025 with a contract term until 19 March 2029.
• Annual gross salary of €44,500.
• Employment contract for a fixed term of four years.
Subject to renewal for a further period:
• Extension approved by the Board of Trustees for a maximum of two further years.
• A second four-year term following a new application and selection process.
Application process
The selection will take place in two phases. In Phase 1, the candidates will submit their Curriculum Vitae and a letter of intent outlining the main lines of the project they wish to carry out. From the submitted applications, the selection committee will choose 3 finalists to move on to the interview phase. The finalists will need to develop a 10-page project and present it in an interview with the selection committee, from which the winning direction will be chosen.
PHASE 1
Individuals or groups wishing to take part in this competition must submit the following documents in a single file:
• A copy of your identity card or passport.
• A CV.
• A letter of motivation addressed to the President of the AAVC Private Foundation, with a maximum length of 3 pages.
• Documentation (certificates, texts, publications, etc.) to verify the professional profile, fulfilment of the requirements and other aspects to be taken into account.
PHASE 2
The selected individuals or groups must submit the following documents:
• A strategy and action plan based on the “professional assignment” of a maximum of 10 pages.
All the documentation must be sent in a single PDF document (maximum size 10 MB) with the subject line “Concurs per a la direcció d’Hangar i de la Fundació Privada AAVC” to the following email address: concurshangar2025@hangar.org.
Candidates will receive an e-mail confirming receipt of the application and the documents submitted, subject to further verification.
Any queries during the open period of the competition must be sent by e-mail to the same address.
Application selection process
• Formal validation of the digital documents submitted and accepted.
• Pre-selection of candidates on the on basis of the submitted CV and letter of motivation.
• Selection of a maximum of 3 finalists, who will be asked to submit a program of up to 10 pages and will be invited to a personal interview where they can develop and defend their project.
• Selection of candidate/s.
Before the in-person interview, the candidates must submit the originals of the previously submitted documents in PDF format.
The jury will be composed of members of the Board of Trustees of the AAVC Private Foundation, an external person from the artistic and cultural context (whose identity will be revealed before the application deadline) and a member of the ICUB. A representative of the (former) residents’ collective and a member of the team will participate with voice but without vote.
The Foundation will not cover travel expenses in the event of being selected for the in-person interview.
Deadlines
Phase 1 – Pre-selection of candidates
February 18 – Publication of the competition guidelines.
March 9, 11:59 pm: Deadline for submission of documentation.
March 10-14: Shortlisting of candidates.
March 14: Notification of preselected candidates.
Phase 2 – Selected candidates
March 30, 11:59 pm: Deadline for preselected candidates to submit projects.
April 7: In-person interviews.
April 11: Announcement of a new director.
Results
The final decision, which rests with the Board of Trustees of the AAVC Foundation and cannot be appealed, will be made on 11 April 2025 and will be announced via the official Hangar communication channels.
The decision is final and the competition may be declared void. If no candidate is selected, the Trustees will organise a new competition as soon as possible.
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