CALL FOR SELF-NOMINATIONS
Inaugural UCalgary Artistic Research Award
To be Awarded at PSi #28: Uhambo Luyazilawula: Embodied Wandering Practices
Johhannesburg / 2 – 5 August 2023
The UCalgary Artistic Research Award was established by the organizers of Performance Studies international #25: Elasticity, held at the University of Calgary, and will be awarded for the first time this year to mark PSi’s return to in-person conferencing. The award celebrates outstanding contributions of artist-researchers to the annual conference event. The prize of $500.00 USD is awarded to an accepted conference program contribution that exemplifies the huge potential for artistic research to not only create new knowledge but also to expand epistemological horizons—specifically within conference programming and, more generally, within broader academic and professional contexts and discourses.
Given the broad and fluid parameters of artistic research practices, the assessment criteria for this award are elastic and inclusive. Eligible conference contributions include (but are not limited to) papers, live presentations, media-based events (such as virtual presentations, online installations, live presentations that incorporate technology), workshops, and performances. This is an incomplete and open-ended list of possibilities, and the award adjudication will strive to expand and adapt as alternative formats emerge within any given conference environment.
To facilitate this assessment flexibility while providing applicants with a baseline of relevant criteria, the selection committee will maintain focus on several, broadly accepted characteristics of artistic research.
Enactive: artistic research is primarily practice-based and conducted through action and experience.
Process/product: artistic research is often process-oriented, in which artistic processes are understood as legitimate project outcomes, and in which artistic practice is a primary mode of investigation, analysis, documentation, and dissemination.
Situated: artistic research is often a directly reflective expression of a specific context, set of participants, and environmental conditions. (This does not, of course, exclude the transmission of the project’s discoveries and benefits; but it does resist attempts towards repeatability and/or direct transplantation to altered contexts.)
Emergent: both the knowledge created and the means by which this occurs emerge out of the research practice, requiring of both the researcher and the project design a heightened responsiveness and adaptability.
The award is open to all participants within an annual conference program. To be considered, participants must self-identify and request inclusion in the assessment process no later than 15 days prior to conference date. In 2023, this deadline is Tuesday, July 18th.
The recipient of the award will be announced at the annual AGM held during the in-person conference. The award Selection Committee will normally include the PSi Artist Relations Officer, one member of the Artistic Research Working Group, and one other artist-researcher designated by the PSi Board of Officers.
All interested participants should forward their name, contact information, conference abstract, and confirmation of acceptance to the PSi Artist Relations Officer, Bruce Barton (bruce.barton@ucalgary.ca) no later than 11:59 pm on July 18th.
bruce.barton