Encura VI: Curatorial Research Residency between Barcelona and Madrid

Hangar, Casa de Velazquez and hablarenarte with the support of AC/E are launching a call for applications for a grant for Spanish or foreign curators and researchers based in Spain to carry out a three-month curatorial research residency between Barcelona and Madrid, from mid-November 2023 to mid-February 2024.

About Encura
Encura is a research residency programme that aims to promote, expand and complexify curatorial research processes by intertwining the artistic contexts of Barcelona and Madrid, encouraging and enabling curatorial research that does not result in conventional exhibition projects. In its first four editions, Encura was led by Hangar in collaboration with hablarenarte and Curators Network; in its fifth edition, La Casa Encendida co-led the project; and in its sixth edition, Casa de Velázquez co-leads the project with Hangar and hablarenarte.

Aims of Encura
Since its first edition, Encura has been conceived as a proposal that does not necessarily lead to a result, valuing research and exchange processes that do not exclusively focus on the exhibition format as a horizon for the materialisation of curatorial research. One of its objectives is to support curatorial research and promote territorial cooperation in the generation and transfer of knowledge and practices through art.

Encura understands curatorial research as a political-affective space that generates its own values, questions, languages and possibilities. Its porosity and capacity to intertwine with other agents and practices, to imagine polyphonic narratives and actions, from the theoretical to the sensitive, always in being and doing with others, also implies an ethical-political methodology in itself, which in turn enables the questioning of ways of making and producing. As a specific and situated curatorial research tool, Encura is based on the coexistence, collaboration, dialogue and interdependence between the contexts of Madrid and Barcelona, proposing to work with research methodologies that challenge the hierarchies and logics of the production of private and individualised knowledge. Encura promotes the overflow of disciplines, as well as decelerated and unproductive times of exchange and research, allowing the appropriate material conditions for a research process that has the necessary solidity and degree of experimentation to develop curatorial projects that are relevant to their contexts and respond to the questions and urgencies of the moment in which we live and work.

Encura VI Call for applications
Encura VI will provide an honorarium of €2500 and a living allowance of €1500 for the selected person.

Applicants’ research projects should be interested in artistic practices registered in each of the cities, and should involve collaboration and dialogue with artists or agents based at Hangar and Casa de Velázquez.

Encura VI will provide up to €2,800 to carry out a public activity in each city, with the participation of at least one resident of each centre. This grant does not include the possibility of an exhibition. It is an invitation to experiment with other types of activations, socialisations, openings and formats of the project, with a budget of up to €1,000 for research expenses.

What Encura VI offers
In Barcelona:
– Accommodation and workspace at Hangar for the first two months of the residency.
– Link and immersion in the local art scene with the accompaniment of Veronica Valentini, head of international networks and residencies at Hangar.
– Presentation space for the project in Hangar’s Sala Ricson.

In Madrid:
– Accommodation for the selected person, workspace, contact and visits with the resident artists, provided by Casa de Velázquez.
– Accompaniment, link and immersion in the local art scene, facilitated by the hablarenarte team as an intermediary between the candidate and the context of the city.
– Space for the presentation of the project, to be decided between the candidate and hablarenarte.

Endowment of the grant
Encura provides the recipient with:
– Fees for the curator: €2500 gross.
– Living expenses up to €1500 gross.
– Research grant for artists, collaborators and agents participating in the research of up to €1000 gross.
– Production grant linked to the proposal for the activation or socialisation of the curatorial research developed, of up to €2,800 gross.
– Travel expenses between the curator’s usual place of residence in Barcelona and Madrid of up to €500 gross.
– Accommodation and workspace at Hangar, Barcelona.
– Accommodation and workspace at Casa de Velázquez, Madrid.
– Accompanying research and mediation in both contexts.
– Technical support for the development and production of the project in Madrid and Barcelona.

Eligible applicants
– The call is open to curators and researchers of legal age, of Spanish nationality or of foreign nationality living in Spain, at any stage of their professional development.
– Applications may be submitted individually or collectively, in which case a representative of the authors of the curatorial research project must be appointed.
– The author(s) of the curatorial research project must not be artists. Applicants who have been awarded prizes in previous Encura calls are not eligible to apply, nor may more than one project be submitted per researcher, either individually or collectively.
– There is no age limit. The project will be assessed according to the stage of the candidate’s career.
– Applicants must undertake to be available for the three months of the residency.
– The projects submitted may be part of an ongoing research project or may be articulated for this specific purpose.

Timing and duration
The three-month residency will take place in Barcelona and Madrid between mid-November 2023 and mid-February 2024. Specifically, between 14 November and 14 January in Barcelona (Hangar) and between 15 January and 15 February 2024 in Madrid (Casa de Velázquez).

Application procedure
Applications must be sent in a single document in PDF format, not exceeding 10 pages, to veronica@hangar.org with the subject line “Convocatoria Encura VI”.
This document must include

1. Personal details:
– First name(s);
– Surname(s);
– Full address (please include city and country);
– Telephone number;
– E-mail address;
– Date of birth;
– Nationality.

2. A brief biography of the applicant’s professional career in the form of a resume written according to the applicant’s own criteria, including links, documentation or materials from previous projects (up to 1,000 characters including spaces).

3. A letter of motivation, in particular the reasons that have led the applicant to be interested in this particular residency and the objectives that they hopes to achieve in their professional and creative development through the residency.

4. Project proposal to be developed during the residency (up to 1,000 characters including spaces).

5. Description of the project, including
– A summary of the project (up to 2,000 characters including spaces);
– The proposed methodology (up to 2,000 characters including spaces);
– The possible partners and artists involved and their rationale for the project (up to 1,500 characters including spaces);
– A summary of any activation or socialisation framework for the project (up to 1,500 characters including spaces);
– The timetable and work plan;
– a maximum of 5 images of the project (1 compulsory, 4 optional).

* IMPORTANT
Applications that do not contain the required information and/or exceed the length limit will not be accepted.

Deadlines
Applications deadline: Friday, 21 July 2023 at 13:00 (GMT+1)
Resolution: Friday, 28 July 2023
Beginning of the residency: from 14 November 2023

Selection process
The selection committee will be composed of:
– Anna Manubens, Director of Hangar and Veronica Valentini, Head of Networks and International Residencies at Hangar.
– Artistic Director of Casa de Velázquez.
– Flavia Introzzi and Emma Brasó, from the hablarenarte team.

Evaluation criteria
Encura VI will positively evaluate research projects that are committed to:
– An investigation into the dispositions of the conditions of knowledge production that mobilises critical thinking capable of elaborating fronts of aesthetic and political struggle.
– The creation of a dialogue between the contexts of Barcelona and Madrid and the relevance of both stays for the development of situated curatorial research.
– Transformation and experimentation, convergence of different formats and languages of curatorial theory and practice, expanding the traditional logics of exhibition production.
– The facilitation of research processes and the transfer of knowledge to transversal, not necessarily specialised audiences.
– The generation of new forms of subjectivity and understanding of the world from critical, non-hegemonic, transfeminist, anti-racist and non-empowering positions.
– Collaborative decision-making processes and new forms of experimentation in relationships with artists and collaborators.
– The responsibility and level of commitment required in research processes and what happens to the knowledge accumulated in the course of these processes.
– The proposal of innovative open source formats for the socialisation, visibility and documentation of the curatorial research process.
– The link with the goals of the 2030 Agenda will be assessed, in particular with regard to gender equality, the reduction of inequalities, sustainability and climate action.
– The affinity with the programmes and lines of work of the convening institutions.

Responsibilities of the selected project
– To make a public presentation of the project in Hangar during the second week of January 2024.
– To give at least one public presentation of the project in Madrid during the second week of February 2024.
– To produce a report detailing the activities carried out during the residency, an evaluation of the work developed during the residency, the residency programme, the institutions and the professional benefits obtained.
– The selected person must commit to being present at the workplace for at least 80% of the time during the residency.
– To accredit the Encura programme and include its logo and that of Hangar, Casa de Velázquez, hablarenarte in all public communications about the project.

For further information please contact
Veronica Valentini
veronica@hangar.org
T. 93 308 40 41

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Supported by: