THESE PROGRAMS ARE NOT ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS.

Deadline to apply: May 1, 2021

Over the previous months, and as an attempt to address the extraordinary circumstances arts communities are facing, Mophradat has launched several open calls for projects specifically in Beirut. In our conversations with practitioners in the city, several desires continue to resurface: activating dialogue amongst the art community in balanced and amicable ways, restructuring resources towards broader equality in accessing opportunities, and investigating the possibilities at the intersections of art and activism, as well as a need to bring resources and visibility to new actors and ideas as the city’s demographics drastically change.  With the intention of forwarding experimental ideas and actions, we are launching this open call to support projects that try to achieve these goals in practical, imaginative, and speculative ways. 

The open call proposes three categories of projects for which applicants can apply:

• Gatherings designed for artists and audiences of the (uncertain) future;
• Projects that transform the arts scene into a place where women artists, writers, curators, and technicians thrive;
• Initiatives by artists, individuals, collectives that forward radical artistic/activist ideas. 

Individuals, collectives or institutions in Lebanon can apply and are encouraged to approach this application as practically, imaginatively, and speculatively as possible.

Grant amounts for all categories begin at US$4,000 with a maximum of US$20,000. The total budget available for this call is approximately US$70,000.

SPECIFIC ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

In addition to complying with the general eligibility criteria that you can read here, please note the following:

• Collaborations between the arts and other fields are encouraged.
• Commercial or fundraising activities are not eligible.
• Individual and private infrastructural reconstruction efforts are not eligible.

For this round of Grants for Artists, grantees will be announced on May 14, not May 1.

Deadlines: Biannually on April 1 and October 1

These grants support artists (individuals, collaborations, or collectives) to develop their practice. This program is specially directed to those inventing new forms of creating and sharing arts knowledge with others, and for those aiming to question the current arts making paradigm; therefore we encourage eccentric and critical proposals challenging traditional arts genres and discourses. Among other activities, the grants can be used to pursue threads of research, stage an event, make new work, publish, travel, take part in a residency or workshop, organize meetings and gatherings, or present an exhibition or performance. The grants can cover part or all of the proposed activity or project. Between fifteen and thirty grants are awarded each calendar year depending on the available budget, with a maximum amount of US$5,000 per grant.

SPECIFIC ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

In addition to complying with the general eligibility criteria that you can read here, please note the following:

• The proposal must be achievable and completed within twelve months of the grant submission deadline;
• Production and post-production for feature films are not eligible;
• Applications to attend degree-based study programs (such as MAs or PhDs) are out of the grant program’s scope and will not be considered;
• For time to write, please refer to our Writing Sabbaticals program;
• Aiming for balanced professional relationships, Mophradat does not support applications to cover the costs and fees of artists invited to run a workshop, administer, or curate projects in Europe or North America that fall under categories of (temporary) employment in those contexts, and should be covered by those hosts’ institutional budgets.

PROCESS

• Grant recipients are evaluated and selected by an external advisory committee once the application is confirmed to be fulfilling the program’s general and specific eligibility criteria. The advisors’ names are published after grant recipients are announced.
• All applicants, whether selected or not, receive a response to their applications one month after the application deadline. If selected, a grant agreement will be signed between the recipient and Mophradat.
• Funds will be released in a two-stage process: 80 percent when the grant agreement is signed and the remaining 20 percent on project completion.
• A narrative summary of what was achieved, and a financial report must be submitted before the end date of the grant agreement and before the last instalment is paid.

*Please note that due to the high volume of applications and the confidentiality of the selection process, Mophradat does not provide individual feedback explaining the reason an application was not selected.

**By applying for a grant, you agree that if you are selected you will endeavour to realize your project. If the project is not realized to an appropriate level of completion within the timeline agreed upon, you may be asked to partially or fully reimburse Mophradat.

Being mothers, (involved) fathers, caregivers and parents is a part of many people’s identities—one that is often ignored within the art world. Although art is a field of work that, in most contexts, favors the personal over the official, and the emotional over the material, it nonetheless, like most other professional spheres, replicates the patriarchal strategies that render parenting invisible.

Mophradat is actively looking for ways to shift access to opportunities. Opening up its venue in Athens as a summer retreat for artists and their families to live together, where artists can work and children can play in an experiment of communal living, is one attempt at doing so. Three artists (and partners) with young children will be invited to spend a month-long residency in the venue. The format will allow for shared childcare and afford working space and time to the residents, all within a safe social environment, with resources, time, skills and stories made common. As the experience unfolds, Mophradat will use the opportunity to engage residents in further explorations of the theme of motherhood.

The Athens venue comprises four spaces that can be used as bedrooms, one collective working area for the artists, a common play space for the children, shared kitchens and bathrooms, a small garden and large terraces. In addition to accommodations, Mophradat will cover the round-trip travel for the entire family unit and provide a group stipend to cover the shared daily costs, including food and basic housekeeping needs.

Given the communal nature of the residency, all participants will be required to diligently respect all sanitary regulations and preventive measures for themselves and for their co-residents. Please also be aware that, depending on the evolution of the pandemic, the date and specifics of the retreat are subject to change. Unfortunately, due to the current travel restrictions, the retreat is only open to candidates able to travel to Greece.

Please also note that the house is on two floors, and is only partially wheelchair accessible.

SPECIFIC ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

In addition to complying with the general eligibility criteria that you can read here, please note the following:

• The main applicant must be from or have origins in the Arab world;
• They must be a professional working artist, writer, or curator, and working on a specific project;
• They must be at present a primary (co-)caregiver and planning to travel with no more than two children under the age of five who will join them in residence (due to space and logistical constraints, we anticipate only being able to accommodate family units of maximum two caregivers and two children);
• They must have an interest in communal living, including sharing, compromising, and contributing to everyday household responsibilities;
• Sharing a common studio rather than a private workspace should be compatible with their practice.

PROCESS

• Applicants are evaluated and selected by Mophradat once the application is confirmed to have fulfilled the program’s general and specific eligibility criteria. 
• All shortlisted applicants will be interviewed prior to the final invitations.
• All applicants, whether selected or not, receive a response to their applications one month after the application deadline. If selected, a residency agreement will be signed between the resident and Mophradat.

*Please note that due to the high volume of applications expected and the complexity of putting together a compatible group that suits the site, the election process will involve many considerations outside the artistic merit of individual practices. Unfortunately, we cannot provide individual feedback explaining the reasons why an application was not selected.

This program is partially supported by the German Federal Foreign Office, the European Cultural Foundation, and in cooperation with Allianz Kulturstiftung.

Self-Organizations is a program that aims to provoke inventive ways of working and collaborating. The program offers support to projects where different arts practitioners take the initiative and join forces to define a mutual resource or interest that’s important for their work, and propose how to share or develop it. The overall purpose of the program is to incite productive conversations, encourage the development of bespoke protocols for collaboration, and push for new art experiences to take place. Eventually, through different experiments with self-organization, the value of collective sharing and generosity amongst arts communities may show itself to be more relevant than funds and structures. The program will involve a diversity of participants working according to the specific guidelines below in order to try different formats and methodologies. For this second edition, this open call is reaching out to those interested in self-organizing under this program. The program will support projects by informal groups or collectives across four different categories as follows:

1. Informal Co-ops: Rather than replicating the same individual remedy for needs that are common, this program supports imaginative practical solutions for a mutual concern of a group. A minimum of four practitioners need to take the initiative to come together and identify a resource that they can share for a period of six months to one year, that can help them develop their own work. Examples include but are not limited to: a shared work studio, a music PA system, a video editing suite, a 3D printer, or hiring an assistant for the group. It is necessary that all the collaborators are involved from the start, and articulate their need of this specific resource for their own practice.

A maximum budget of US$6,000 will be available to cover the cost of this shared resource for approximately two selected proposals, starting from May 1, 2021 for no more than one year.

2. Private Audiences: As the use of public spaces and access to institutional venues becomes increasingly difficult, this program wants to make sure that practitioners can continue presenting and engaging with audiences. The program is designed for those interested in organizing art events in domestic and workplaces or other temporary private locations, where people can come together in small groups of peers, neighbors, friends, family, etc. The organization of the event must involve at least three people working collaboratively as curators or presenters, and can be a one-time event or a series that presents for example, but not limited to: a small exhibition, a performance, a dance piece, a concert, etc.

A maximum budget of US$1,000 will be available to realize the event/s for approximately three selected proposals, which can take place between May 1, 2021 and October 1, 2021.

3. Topical Assemblies: This program supports access to specialized intellectual or vocational knowledge where formal structures or public platforms for such learning are lacking. This category is for a group that wishes to come together and organize a collective discussion such as a seminar or workshop, on a specialized topic of their interest. Depending on the needs, this can be online or in-person, with or without invited guest speaker/s, however it must have a committed group of at least four people to develop it together. The assembly can be public or limited to the group.

A maximum budget of US$1,500 will be available for approximately two selected proposals, for activities that can take place between June 1 and October 1, 2021.

4. Your Ideas: We are also open to ideas that we have not considered and fall under the notion of self-organization. We are keeping this category open to hear from potential participants on what they want to initiate as part of this program. The proposal must be made by at least three collaborators, and the budgets will be determined by the specificity of the proposal but should not exceed US$4,000. One proposal will be supported in this category, and the timeframe will be agreed upon based the proposal’s specific needs.

*Due to the volatility of the current Covid19 crisis, if you are invited to participate in the Self Organizations program, then you commit to conforming your project to the prevailing sanitary advice and taking any needed precautions.

SPECIFIC ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

In addition to complying with the general eligibility criteria that you can read here, please note the following:

• Arts practitioners from all disciplines and stages of their careers are welcome to apply.
• Priority will be given to proposals taking place within the Arab world.
• Institutions or already existing projects are not eligible to apply.

PROCESS

Mophradat’s team in collaboration with two external advisors will evaluation the applications based on how they align with the objective of the program.

• All applicants, whether selected or not, receive a response to their applications by April 15, 2021.
• Shortlisted participants will be invited for an online conversation to elaborate on their application before final selection is made.
• As we often receive a high volume of applications, Mophradat does not provide individual feedback explaining why an application was not selected.
• On selection, an agreement will be signed between the recipient and Mophradat.
• Project participants will be asked to commit to providing a narrative report at the end of their project to let us know what happened, help us understand their experience of the project, and how it fulfilled (or not) the overall objective of the program.

This program is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mophradat is supporting emerging creative writers from the Arab world working in the genres of contemporary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Published authors currently working on a new piece of writing for publication, and in need of time to focus on its completion can apply to this program. The program offers a short sabbatical period to four or six writers per open call, who receive a stipend to allow each to take time out from their daily preoccupations and complete their text.

The participant would receive an amount that ranges from US$600 to US$1,300 per month determined by Mophradat based on the local living costs of the country of residency of the applicant, and covers from one and up to three months period depending on the writers’ need. Applicants must have a publisher interested in their upcoming work (online or print including independent book publishers, periodicals or other literary or cultural journals qualify).

SPECIFIC ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

• Applicants must be from or living in the Arab world.
• Applicants must be authors of creative writing including fiction, poetry, criticism, essay, and other artistic forms. These sabbaticals are not for academic writing, film, or journalism.
• Applicants must be published writers with at least two prior instances of publication.
• Applicants must provide a letter of interest from a publisher for the new work they will develop with this sabbatical. Innovative proposals in method and form will be given priority.
• Applicants must commit to taking leave of their day jobs for the entire sabbatical period (For those who are selected: If employed, a letter from their place of employment must be provided confirming the agreed time out).

PROCESS

• All applicants, whether selected or not, receive a response to their applications by April 1, 2021.
• Due to the high volume of applications and the confidentiality of the selection process, Mophradat does not provide individual feedback explaining the reason an application was not selected.
• If selected, a grant agreement will be signed between the recipient and Mophradat.
• The sabbatical period should start between April 15 and October 15, 2021.
• Funds will be released in a two-stage process: 70 percent when the grant agreement is signed, and the remaining 30 percent at the end of the grant period upon submission of the completed manuscript and a short narrative summary of what was achieved.
• The grantee engages to visibly credit Mophradat for the publication of their work, and send copies of any printed material to its office in Brussels.