Call for Proposals (deadline 3/1/2010)

HiveMind by Deborah Yoon – Photo (c) 2009 Michael Dolan

Call for Art: 2010 FIGMENT Sculpture Garden

Last summer, FIGMENT worked with the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation to create a sculpture garden on Governors Island, which was free and open to visitors to the island throughout the summer season. The sculpture garden was located next to FIGMENT’s Minigolf Course on the island, and featured 16 works, including The Temple of Truth, HiveMind, Discarded, Rhythm & Rest, and the Agony of Man. Given that the island received over 275,000 visitors throughout the summer, we estimate that approximately 40,000 people visited FIGMENT’s sculpture garden. This year, FIGMENT again plans to create a season-long exhibition of interactive sculpture on Governors Island. Once again, the sculpture garden will be free and open to the public on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays while the island is open from June 5 to early October.

FIGMENT is seeking proposals for works to be installed in this sculpture garden. We are accepting proposals for new works to be created for the sculpture garden, as well as works that are already in existence that are looking for a temporary home. Sculpture projects will be selected on the basis of creativity, interactivity, structural integrity, sustainability, and budget.

• Creativity: Your work should be visually stunning and wildly innovative.
• Interactivity: Your work should engage the visitors to the FIGMENT Sculpture Garden and invite them to interact with it. Rather than just being a beautiful or thought provoking object, the sculpture should create an experience for the participant by inviting them to touch, explore, reconfigure, or co-create the sculpture itself.
• Structural Integrity: Your piece must be able to withstand four months’ worth of exposure to the elements on an island in the middle of New York harbor, as well as unsupervised interaction from visitors to the island throughout the season.
• Sustainability: Please consider your materials carefully. Where do they come from? Where will they go after the installation is over? Given the temporary nature of the installation, if possible please consider creating your work from found waste materials, or from materials that can be temporarily appropriated and then reused after the installation.
• Adherence to Theme: “World’s Fair” is a deliberately open-ended theme.  We encourage your unique interpretation.
• Budget: It is our hope to be able to compensate artists for some or all of the expenses they incur in creating and transporting their work. In 2009, most of the projects in the FIGMENT Sculpture Garden were self-funded by the artists, but we were able to secure a commission from a foundation for a few of the new pieces. Please be as minimal as possible with your budget. We are asking for two budget numbers: your actual cost in creating the work and installing it on the island, and the minimum amount of funding you would need to receive to execute the project. We encourage all projects to seek funding through every available avenue.

Governors Island is located in the New York Harbor, approximately 1/2 mile from Lower Manhattan and 1/4 mile from Brooklyn. Its waterfront offers dramatic and impressive vistas of the New York skyline and New York Harbor, including the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. In 2003, the Island was opened to the public with the mission of serving as a cultural and educational location for all New Yorkers.

To submit a proposal, please respond with the following 6 things:

1.    Your name, address, email, and best phone number to reach you

2.    1-3 artistic sketches of your proposed piece

3.    1-3 sketches of piece’s structural elements

4.    Brief (100-500 words) description of the project: How will it work? What makes it interactive?

5.    Brief construction/installation plan: Where will you build your piece? What resources do you need, or hope to share, to build and install the piece?

6.    Budget: Please provide an estimate of your costs to create your project and install it on the island. Please also provide the minimum amount of funding that you would require to execute the project. Once projects are selected, we will inform all artists of how much funding is available for their project. Any costs above this funding amount will be the responsibility of the artist. Please note that we do not anticipate being able to offer artist’s stipends or honoraria.

Please submit your proposal by Monday, March 1 at 11:59 pm ET to sculpturegarden@figmentproject.org. Any questions should be directed to this address, as well.

Follow this link to see images of the 2009 FIGMENT Sculpture Garden.