CALL FOR CALL FOR PRINT 2024!

Svenska/English

Do you want to work with printmaking and are active in Sweden or Sápmi? Grafikens Hus is seeking a professional artist, illustrator or designer from the BIPOC community* to create art in the form of printmaking. For the fourth year in a row, we are announcing the project Call for Print.

In Call for Print, an artist, illustrator or designer is commissioned to print an edition run under the guidance of Grafikens Hus together with a master printer.

How to apply
In Call for Print, a professional artist, illustrator or designer is commissioned to print an edition together with a master printer. You do not need to have any prior knowledge or experience of printmaking. The application should include a brief description in pictures and text of your creative practice and the idea you want to realise (max 1⁄2 A4, 2000 characters excluding spaces). Attach 5 images of previous artworks, works or other things you have created (PDF/Jpeg, the document should not weigh more than 10 MB in total).

Application criteria
We are looking for:
– an artist, illustrator or designer from the BIPOC community*.
– working in Sweden or Sápmi.

Fee and schedule
The production will start in December 2024 and all material costs will be covered by the project. The fee for participating in the project is invoiced at SEK 7,500 excluding VAT, which will be paid to the person selected by the jury who receives the assignment when the edition is printed, signed and approved by Grafikens Hus. The printed edition will become part of Grafikens Hus‘ future collection and be sold in Grafikens Hus’ Fine Art Print shop, where compensation to the artist for sold artworks is paid once a year.

The project does not cover travel or accommodation this year, which we understand is a structural barrier to who can apply. In the future, we would like to be able to cover these costs as well.

Send your application by e-mail to: callforprint@grafikenshus.se, no later than November 18.

How we assess the application
The selection process is based on the material submitted in the application. Applications will be assessed by the jury set up for the call. In its assessment, the jury will use the following guidelines, not as a requirement but as a tool and support for discussion:

1. Design and feasibility. Applicants demonstrate good design ability in the work samples and in relation to the artistic idea.
2. Printmaking as a medium. Applicants demonstrate interesting approaches through their artistic idea, and/or challenge printmaking as an art form with new perspectives.
3. Artistic experimentation. Applicants express an interest in challenging their own artistic practice by trying out new methods or processes. This can be in the form of an interdisciplinary practice where the applicant’s idea shows an approach to other fields of art and contributes to the development of their own artistic practice, or as a curiosity to understand what printmaking can be.

Why does Grafikens Hus implementing Call for Print?
Grafikens Hus wants to change the homogeneous art scene that we operate in and are part of, and to broaden who gets the opportunity to work in the field. We hope that Call for Print will break down walls created by institutions, which often stay within the same communities, reproducing the same knowledge.

We at Grafikens Hus aim to constantly question our own position in knowledge production and representation. By visualising a breadth of perspectives and expressions, we open up to different ways of understanding and thinking about the world, society and being human. Grafikens Hus aims to be an art museum where more people want and are allowed to take their place.

Call for Print is an open call that takes place annually.

Jury 2024
Parasto Backman is a graphic designer, trained at Beckmans College of Design and has run her own design studio for 10 years. She is particularly committed to emphasising design as a complex and versatile practice with great potential. She often returns to digging into the past and then taking it further into a contemporary and future context. Based in Stockholm with roots in Iran, her expression is influenced by a broad reference bank and a multifaceted palette, often with elements of ornamental form. In addition to her artistic practice, Parasto teaches as a lecturer at the master’s programme in Visual Communication at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design. Parasto has been awarded the prestigious Berling Prize as well as the Swedish Book Art, Design S, Kolla!, AWDA Award and others. In 2023 she was elected to the Type Directors Club.

Kayo Mpoyi combines image and text in her artistic practice. Kayo has written two novels that explore the rediscovery of distorted history and the healing of trauma through fiction. She creatively interprets various fragments from archives, a practice she calls inner archaeology. By weaving fictional narratives around objects in national and personal archives, Kayo aims to rediscover the past. Drawing is a way to let the body decode. Printmaking is a way of multiplying and repeating the drawing. Text and painting are a way of visualising the findings before the search begins anew in the drawing.

This year, Grafikens Hus has invited Maya Nagano Holm as guest curator for Call for Print!

Maya Nagano Holm is an art historian and curator based in Stockholm. They work as a coordinator and with the production of exhibitions and programmes at Färgfabriken, an exhibition space for contemporary art and architecture. They have previously held positions at Skånes konstförening, Grafikens Hus, Konsthall C, Mint, and as a guest critic at Gerlesborgsskolan. Nagano Holm is interested in processes of exoticisation and alienation in Western visual cultures, as well as in world-making and the collective in relation to diaspora and the queer. Their writing has been published in Konstnären, Kultwatch and Lulu-journalen, among others. They also have experience in organisational life, including Konst Detox and Podium Kultur, and is committed to broader inclusion and movements within the art field.

Do you have any questions? Email callforprint@grafikenshus.se

*BIPOC: Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour