Beginning of Opportunity: October 1, 2018

Deadline for Submissions: Review of submissions is ongoing, but the deadline for 2019 projects is December 15, 2018.

Help us shape the future of Mormon art

The Mormon Arts Center is pleased to announce a Call For Submissions. It is open to scholars, curators, artists, performers, and others who desire to engage with the goals of the Mormon Arts Center to “display and perform Mormon art in New York City and elsewhere; to publish scholarship and criticism about Mormon art to reach a wider public; and to establish a comprehensive archive of Mormon Arts, 1830 to the present.”

The Center wishes to invite people to develop presentations, events, exhibitions, performances, Center programs, and scholarly works for publication to be completed over the next three years. These projects, including book launches, will debut primarily but not exclusively at the annual Mormon Arts Center Festivals in New York City.

The Center intends to select numerous, viable proposals, provide a paid commission to develop and execute the idea, serve as a collaborator as necessary, and fund the event, exhibition, performance and/or publication. Commission fees to applicants will be commensurate with the scale of the project and will be set on a project-by-project basis. To provide an example, to date, our stipends and commissions have ranged from $500 for a one-hour presentation at the festival to $10,000 for a book-length scholarly work. The Center will defray expenses for participants coming to New York for the festival.

We encourage potential applicants to review the kinds of projects already completed by the Mormon Arts Center—both to avoid duplication and to understand the scope and rigor of our activities and aspirations. The following are examples of previous Mormon Arts Center projects:

• A 700-page history of Mormon Cinema

• An art exhibition and accompanying publication of two dozen contemporary Mormon artists

• A concert at Carnegie Hall of Mormon composers’ works 

• A panel discussion with leading scholars and artists on art making as a spiritual inquiry

• The premiere of They All Saw a Cat, an original composition and concert for children with narrator and chamber ensemble

• A symposium of LDS scholars responding to Pres. Kimball’s “The Gospel Vision of the Arts” 

• An artist’s residency program in New York City for an artist from Angola

• A Sing-in of LDS choral works conducted by Craig Jessop

• A presentation on contemporary LDS artists working in the medium of video

• Performance of jazz musicians from the Dominican Republic 

• Presentations by leading LDS animators working in Hollywood

• A discussion on the topic of LDS memoirs

• Collaborative drawing projects with multiple LDS artists

• A publication of collected essays presented at the festival

Process of submission:

1. Prepare a written proposal of less than 250 words describing your vision of the potential project. Provide an estimate of resources (time and finances) necessary to achieve it. More extensive projects will require fuller proposals.

2. Include your biographical information, which may include similar previous work or qualifications.

3. Deadline: Review of submissions is ongoing. Completed applications for 2019 projects are due no later than December 15, 2018. Send to: mormonartscenter@gmail.com with the heading, “Call for Submissions”

Process of selection and development:

1.  Proposals will be reviewed and ranked by the Mormon Arts Center’s Advisory Board composed of approximately thirty nationally-recognized artists, scholars, arts administrators, and committed donors (see names here). Final decisions will be made by the Center’s Board of Directors and Chair of the Programming Committee based on the Advisory Board’s recommendations and the proposal’s artistic quality, originality, appropriateness, audience appeal, and furtherance of the Center’s goals.

2. Members of the Center’s boards are also encouraged to submit proposals, but applicants may not vote nor advocate for their own proposals.

3. An applicant may submit multiple proposals; however, our goal is to nurture a wide number of voices developing projects for the Center. 

4. All applicants will be notified of proposal selection results by January 31, 2019. 

5. Once a project is chosen, the Executive Committee will contact the selected applicant and discuss timelines, development needs, projected costs, and will negotiate the paid commission amount. 

Note: The Center is open to projects for entirely new venues, including genres heretofore unexplored. The purpose of beginning a three-year series of projects is to allow a broad range of works to emerge and correspond to the breadth of Mormon art itself. As an organization, we intend to use our expertise to assist in mentoring, producing, and collaborating in order for the applicants to achieve their vision. We encourage applicants to email us with any questions about the process above (mormonartscenter@gmail.com).

This Call for Submissions is open to all. The Mormon Arts Center is a 501(c)(3) organization based in New York City. Information about the Center is available on our website: mormonartscenter.org.