‘Drawing Poetry’: An Experimental Residency – Call for Applications!

‘Drawing Poetry’: An Experimental Residency
with The Poetry School and the Centre for Recent Drawing.

The Poetry School and the Centre for Recent Drawing are seeking applicants for a new experimental research and practice residency.

The residency aims to explore the intersection and cross-pollination of poetry and drawing, and provide an opportunity for creative research, experimentation, collaboration, and the development of innovative new work.

We are looking for London-based poets, artists, and other creative practitioners whose work lies at this nexus: concrete and visual poets, artists with an interest in word and line, typographic artists, Art-Text poets, and those working in as-yet-unnamed hybrid and experimental forms, or who would like to do so.

Written poetry necessarily has a graphic presence that brings it very close to drawing when composing for the page. This presence is highlighted in a space such as the Centre for Recent Drawing. An interest in point, line, words, and the creative visual presentation of poetry-as-art is essential.

We would like to stress that the work you develop need not reflect or continue your past work: experimentation is encouraged. The residency is intended as a place to try out ideas. No ‘finished’ or ‘final’ result is expected. With the exception of the workshops, there is no minimum or set time for you to attend the studio. It is there as and when you need it. 

What the residency will provide:

• 24 hour access to shared studio space at the Centre for Recent Drawing for one month
• Workshop with award-winning site-specific poet Holly Corfield Carr
• Workshop with concrete poet and editor of The New Concrete Chris McCabe
• Discussions on your work with artist and lecturer Gordon Shrigley (TBC)
• Introductory talk from artist and director of C4RD Andrew Hewish
• Travel / materials expenses of up to £100 per participant

Key Dates:

• Tuesday, 4th July: Applications open
• Monday, 17th July: Applications close
• Thursday, 20th July: Applicants notified of outcome
• Monday, 31st July: Residency begins
• Thursday, 10th August (evening): Workshop with Chris McCabe
• Saturday, 19th August: Workshop with Holly Corfield Carr
• Monday, 28th August: Residency ends

About the Centre for Recent Drawing

The Centre for Recent Drawing is London’s museum space for drawing – a member of the Museum Association of the UK and a UK Registered Charity. Founded as an artist project in 2004, C4RD has since provided a public exhibition series, residencies, talks, publications and encouraged production towards independent and non-commercial aims; C4RD is in the unique position of being able to provide a whole building dedicated to drawing – showing continuous exhibitions of a broad variety of drawing practice – and also be able to house residencies specifically for those for whom drawing is a core part of their practice.

The studio at the Centre for Recent Drawing in Highbury and Islington will be available 24 hours a day, with all participants having keycode access, but it is a drop-in and not a live-in residency. There are no overnight facilities.

The space will be shared, and collaboration between residents will be encouraged but not mandatory. Working artists will be present in the other studios in the same building.

The studio space is busy, artistically-chaotic, and very much ‘of the city’. It is not a ‘white cube’. Trains pass constantly outside the window, working artists will be present in the other studios and will drop in and out, drawings appear and disappear on the walls.

This is emphatically not a ‘time-and-space’ residency, but a creative experiment: what happens when you put a small group of innovative practitioners in a shared, collaborative artistic environment?

We are looking to explore the contingencies of exchange and stimulus, collaboration, sociality and encounter, and would encourage participants to leave their works in progress in the studio space for others to experience and react to. Creative exchange with residents in other studios is encouraged.

More information about the Centre for Recent Drawing is available here.

Application Information

Preference will be given to practitioners who would benefit from access to studio space, whether as a necessity to the work, or because of a lack of an appropriate working space of their own.

The application deadline is 17:00 on Monday 17th July.

Applications should be addressed to Ali Lewis at administration[at]poetryschool.com with the subject line ‘Drawing Poetry’. 

To apply, please send us:

• A 300-word outline of why you would like to take part in the residency, including reference to i) the potential project you would like to work on / develop, and ii) your reasons for needing space to work
• A sample of your work across any of poetry, visual art, or hybrid forms
• A completed equal opportunities form (Click here to download: Equal Opps Monitoring Form (PITW applicants)
• Your availability to attend the residency (including likely times and days, e.g. evenings on Mondays and Wednesdays). This is to help us balance the flow of residents in the space.

Eligibility

• Applicants must be available for the duration of the residency, especially the workshops.
• Applicants must not be staff, or related to staff, of The Poetry School or the Centre for Recent Drawing.
• Applications are particularly welcomed from members of communities who are under-represented in poetry and visual art.
• You do not need to have a history of working in hybrid forms – just an idea!