Spier Light Art 2022: Call for Proposals
Spier Light Art 2022 will celebrate people’s unflinching resilience and invite you to reflect on enchantment and exuberance as a way to contribute to this year’s curatorial agenda.
25/0/08/2021
Spier is proud to announce the fourth edition of Spier Light Art, which will be exhibited throughout the historic wine farm, one of the oldest in Stellenbosch, from 17 March to 18 April 2022. Invitations are issued to architects and designers, and light, sound and video artists – as well as students and institutions – to submit expressions of interest for projects and including video-based artworks that are deemed engaging to all age groups.
The success of previous editions of Spier Light Art has highlighted its significance in the cultural landscape of the Western Cape and the potential for this unique art form to reflect on contemporary South Africa. The last 18 months of the global pandemic have laid bare the daily challenges many people and communities are forced to endure, even as we all try to adapt to a world that is constantly in flux. In these moments of adversity, it is important to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit.
Spier Light Art 2022 will celebrate people’s unflinching resilience. We also invite you to reflect on enchantment and exuberance as a way to contribute to this year’s curatorial agenda.
Themes may include:
● Enchantment
and exuberance
● Resilience (not only
relating to COVID-19)
● The current
socio-political landscape
● Our 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
COVID-19 Restrictions
The future is hard to predict with COVID-19, but it is essential that we ensure audiences’ safety. 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.
Onsite Briefing
The curatorial team will hold an onsite briefing on Saturday, 11 September 2021 at 10am starting at the Manor House. Please RSVP to lightart@spier.co.za before 08 September 2021.
Community and national media praised the Spier Light Art exhibition for its safe and beautiful environment, child-friendliness and for providing a profound and poignant opportunity to play, interact and reflect.
Submission requirements and process
Expressions of interest must include:
• Artist/collective/studio biographies of
all involved 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):
• Provide a detailed provisional budget
that indicates whether full or partial funding
is required; and
• Web
links to and/or images of the proposed work or,
if not already developed, examples of previous
work.
Email your expression of interest to the Project Manager at lightart@spier.co.za before 15 October 2021. A more thorough proposal may be requested after the shortlist is announced.
Spier Light Art 2021
With the third Spier Light Art 2021 exhibition having taken place March through April 2021, the Spier estate was lit up with some amazing artworks. The 29 artworks, ranging from interactive installations to pieces that invited the visitor to pause and reflect and were viewed by over 20 000 visitors. Entrants can refer to past artworks showcased at this event to garner ideas on the types of works the Selection Committee is interested in featuring. Details available at https://www.spier.co.za/lightart
“Light art installations are mercurial by nature. Overcoming the confines of their materiality, light art works are clearly defined by what they hide or illuminate,” say curators Vaughn Sadie and Jay Pather. “Entries were placed across the Spier estate and visitors invited to walk and reflect on each exhibit with an opportunity to view or step back and absorb – introspection, adventure and playfulness encouraged. Each work on display offered an opportunity to experience the complex, multi-hued, multi-faceted texture of our environment and ourselves.” As concerns the funding, the Selection Committee for the Spier Arts Trust offers to cover full or partially fund installations.