Call for applications: Marie-Solanges Apollon program

AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, with the support of artist Manuel Mathieu, is launching the first edition of the Marie-Solanges Apollon program with the goal of giving visibility to women* artists from the Black Atlantic diasporas, from the 19th century to today.

This program is named after Marie-Solanges Apollon, Manuel Mathieu’s grandmother, who was a Black immigrant woman living in Canada and a true potomitan. This polysemous creole term comes from the Haitian Vodou traditions and refers to a person, often a woman, who is the central pillar of their home, family, and community. The eponymous scholarship and residency are an homage to her and to the women whose lives have historically been kept in the shadows.

The Marie-Solanges Apollon program seeks to encourage research that highlights the artistic practices of women in transcultural situations related to the Black Atlantic, according to Paul Gilroy, or to the Global South. Special attention will be given to proposals that focus on artists who have lived with overlapping issues related to migration, métissage, Afro-descendance, Africanness, and/or gender.

Projects that are part of a re-reading of art history through archival excavation, curatorial, academic, or community-based research will be particularly appreciated.

In the context of this two-part program, AWARE proposes:
–One scholarship of 3,000 euros, distributed over three months,
–One three-month residency at the Villa Vassilieff.

AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions
AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions is an independent non-profit organization founded in 2014 that works towards making women artists of the 19th and 20th century visible by producing and sharing free bilingual (French/English) content about their work on its website. This online resource presently contains more than 1,000 biographical texts and draws up to 110,000 visits per month.

AWARE represents a diversity of voices with texts written by around 450 researchers, curators, feminist art historians, art critics, and activists from all over the world. To widely disseminate research on women artists, AWARE also organizes symposia, round tables, and seminars in collaboration with institutions, universities, museums, and other independent structures internationally, and edits its own publications.

AWARE is located at the Villa Vassilieff in the Montparnasse neighborhood in Paris, where artist Marie Vassilieff set up her studio in the 1910s. Within this strongly symbolic space, AWARE has created a research center entirely devoted to women artists and feminist art, and hosts events, talks and school workshops.

Conditions of the scholarship
Financial conditions: The scholarship amount awarded will be 1,000 euros/month over 3 months, corresponding to 3,000 euros in total.

A dialogue will be established with the AWARE team during the three months of scholarship.

The scholarship holder is expected to provide a research article, based on the funded research, to be published on the AWARE website.

Conditions of the residence
Length of the residency: three months (from April 1, 2024, to June 30, 2024)

Accommodation: The resident will have an independent living and working studio of 44m² within the Villa Vassilieff.  The resident will also have access to AWARE’s resource and information center, which contains more than 3,200 references on women artists (monographs, critical essays, exhibition catalogues, etc.).

Financial conditions: Payment of a round trip ticket between the place of residence and Paris, living allowance of 1000 EUR/month, i.e., 3,000 EUR for the entire residency.

Support offered by AWARE: The AWARE team will make available its institutional, artistic and academic networks.

During the residency, the resident will be invited to host a meeting at the Villa Vassilieff (conference/round table/masterclass) to present their research work. At the end of the residency, they will be expected to provide a research article which will be published on the AWARE website.

Applications
For applications, please find the full call on the AWARE website.

Interviews with pre-selected candidates will take place in September 2023. The selection committee will be composed of:
–Françoise Vergès, author, feminist political scientist, artivist
–Marie-Ann Yemsi, curator and contemporary art consultant
–Two AWARE representatives

*Woman is understood as a person, who regardless of their gender assigned at birth, identifies as a woman.