Tender: Better Open Calls

Dates: Wednesday 30 and Thursday 31 March. Online event.

Two public panels looked at:

• The processes arts organisations use to find artists and
• The organisational and wider cultural values that drive these processes.

Our aim was to better understand how and why open calls operate as they do, and the wider factors that shape them.

Speakers

Panel 1 (Values): Renée Mussai (Autograph, Chair), Teresa Cisneros (Wellcome), Chris Rawcliffe (Forma), Alison Surtees (Future’s Venture Foundation)

Panel 2: (Processes): Stephanie Allen (Arts and Heritage, Chair), SuAndi (National Black Arts Alliance), Lilli Geisendorfer (Jerwood), Lennie Varvarides (DYSPLA)

The roundtable event was run and chaired by artist and facilitator Ruth Singer who has also produced an internal report that this page draws from. Attendees included

• Stephanie Allen (Arts and Heritage)
• Emma Edmonson (ToMA)
• Dyana Gravina ( Artist /Procreate Project / Mother House Studios)
• Zita Holbourne (Artist / Artists Union England)
• Charlotte Hollinshead (ActionSpace)
• Mahmoud Mhady (Artist/member BLKBRD collective)
• Renee Mussai (Autograph)
• Jon Opie (Jerwood Arts)

Discussions during the public Tender symposium suggested that some of the issues with open calls stem from the fact that the art world, like everything else, operates within capitalism. Like capitalism, the western art world is patriarchal, inequitable, and has grown from colonialism. It favours people from relatively wealthier backgrounds, and those who are white, heteronormative, non-migrants, cis-gendered, and able-bodied. Many artists fall into this relatively privileged category, so open calls can work to entrench these privileges and disadvantage less privileged artists.

People thus privileged are more likely to have income outside of their art career, such as family wealth, partner income, stable part-time but well-paid jobs, or passive incomes (like rents). They therefore have more time to spend on their art practice and more time to apply to open calls.

More broadly, artistic practice does not have the same cultural or societal value as other careers. As most artists are self-employed workers, they share the precarious and low incomes of other freelancers.

Open calls have the potential to build better relationships between arts organisations and more diverse communities of artists. For meaningful changes in open calls, organisations need to be clear to themselves about their core values and their motivations for making open calls.

There is no one process or approach to make open calls fairer, and organisations can use different ways to find artists other than competitive processes. Open calls are competitive by definition and different projects can use different matching strategies. Organisations have different levels of resources – money, space, time, staff – which will also limit what they can do.

Approaches may only work well to reduce barriers for one set of needs. Some processes may increase accessibility for one group of artists but inadvertently present barriers to another. Flexibility in all processes is key to keeping access broad.   

Time and money

Finding relevant projects to apply for and writing the application takes time. Competition can be fierce and usually only one applicant is successful. Artists may not be able to afford the time applications take away from earning money elsewhere, or the time they need to make their work. This is particularly true when the process is likely to offer no reward.

Lack of transparency

Arts organisations aren’t always clear about what or who they are looking for, and why they are looking. Sometimes this is because a project has only been worked out for the benefit of the organisation, and not the artist too. Most artists do not understand the processes of shortlisting and selection, and how their application can be more accessible for selectors. Some of this obscurity is intentional to keep control over the process.

Opportunities lead to more opportunities

Artists with more experience in open call applications, and some more privileged insight into how the art world works, have an advantage in getting opportunities. The more opportunities an artist has had, the fuller their CV, the more likely an organisation will be to trust them with more work. Selection panels can favour applicants with more experience, balancing what artist seems to need the project more or who is most likely to succeed in ways that can be unclear.

Processes

Some application processes present barriers to many neurodiverse artists or those with other access requirements, such as complicated or inaccessible language. Many applications favour written applications, easier for shortlisting but more difficult for artists. Online only applications create barriers for artists with low digital skills or resources.

Marketing reach

Organisations don’t always advertise open calls in places where artists who experience barriers are likely to find them. Advertising in non-arts press would increase their reach, but many arts organisations have tiny or zero marketing budgets, or the time to organise adverts.

Both the Tender symposium and the roundtable talked about the importance of keeping artists at the centre of open calls. But organisations are answerable to other forces and stakeholders.

Lack of resources

Most arts organisations have very limited financial and staff resources. Most arts organisations in the UK have fewer than 4 staff, often working part-time or self-employed. Addressing barriers and developing solutions takes time. Running flexible open calls and rewarding artists for their time needs resources that many organisations don’t have.

Pressure from stakeholders

Organisations, like artists, compete for funding which increasingly requires specific social outputs and activity that can be measured. Given the well-established process around open calls, it’s easier for time-pressured organisations to repeat structures that (appear to) work, even when these inadvertently reinforce inequalities. Developing and testing new structures that are more equitable and just takes time. How organisations interpret or imagine their audience’s desire also impact on their open call processes and decisions. An aversion to risk, or the necessity to report success to funders and supporters, can lead to safe choices and asking for unnecessary detail in applications.

Many barriers to accessing opportunities come from structural and social issues. We can call attention to the various forms of economic inequality, racism, educational privilege, and other forms of oppression and inequity in the arts, together with peer organisations, campaigns and civil society groups.

We can improve the Artquest programme and influence how our partners work in the arts.

The roundtable suggested a need for:

Short term: improved resources about open call for organisations

We are working on a new online resource for organisations, particularly aimed at artist-led and unfunded groups. These resources will launch in 2022 and we will work with groups to help implement them. Resources will cover:

• General guidance around open call best practice
• Guidance for specific types of project – residencies, exhibitions, funding etc
• Information on organisations making applications on behalf of artists with access needs.

Medium-term: a regular space for reflection and action

Reducing barriers and improving equity in the arts is an ongoing process. There is no single solution, but we need a change in culture, a place to share ideas, and a way to test action. People at the roundtable were grateful for the reflective space it provided. A regular sector-wide event for conversations on equity would be valuable. We have applied for funding for this in our 2023-26 Arts Council England application.

Ongoing: wider networks

Many open calls don’t reach far beyond an organisation’s existing networks. Organisations don’t know where to find artists that the art world excludes, or how to encourage them. We are piloting the Artist-Led Marketing Network to connect with more diverse artists and will evaluate the project in 2023.

Longer-term: a different way of thinking about artist opportunities

We need to think about open calls at their core: as a means to match artists labour with organisational needs. Open calls and competitive applications are a hangover from civil service processes, where government departments bid for money from the Treasury.

The original Arts Council of Great Britain, the direct predecessor to Arts Council England (ACE), was set up originally to support infrastructure after World War 2 – providing grants for buildings and institutions. It has only relatively recently begun directly supporting artists, and mimicked its older processes in these applications. As the UK’s development agency for the arts, most public and private funders, and in turn most other arts organisations, have mimicked ACE’s processes. These competitive, text-based, complex application processes remain almost unchanged from a period of time where people who had a privileged education almost exclusively ran arts organisations.

We propose a more radical and longer-term review of how artists get opportunities, beyond open calls.

With development, Artquest Exchange and our Applied programme could be powerful ways to:

• Reduce artists’ labour to find and express interest in projects
• Support organisations in finding artists traditionally excluded on the basis of gender, caring responsibilities, disability, LGBTQAI+ artists, and those from the global majority
• Establish a diverse network of artists that support its members beyond finding opportunities.
• Gather evidence and better understand the barriers that artists face to accessing opportunities
• Measure the ongoing impact of new processes on diversity and access
• Encourage best practice and accountability amongst organisations

Artquest Exchange is a free online network for visual artists to connect with peers and collaborate. Artist profiles already contain the basic information needed for many applications. With development it could become a network where organisations instead come to find artists, a tool for artists to express interest in an opportunity with little or no work. Artists could opt-in to automatic applications for regular opportunities, and organisations can benefit from simpler processes.

Applied is a data partnership with organisations who have online application processes. Our established relationships with these partners could let us trial Artquest Exchange for application and selection.