Have you ever wanted to exhibit your art, but not sure where to begin? The Whakatāne Art Gallery team is now looking for exhibition ideas for 2022. Every year, an open call for submissions is held to give artists and creative groups an opportunity to bring an exhibition of their work to Whakatāne.
Submissions are welcomed from all artistic fields including sound, moving image, crafts, photography, dance, installation, paint and drawing. Exhibition proposals can be from solo artists or groups. Priority will be given to projects that respond to and reflect the local Whakatāne audience, with the overall aim of presenting a diverse range of voices, themes and mediums in the art gallery’s 2022 scheduling.
Most exhibition slots will be between five and nine weeks each, depending which gallery space they occupy. Vacancies begin in mid-April 2022, when the annual Molly Morpeth Canaday Award closes.
This year spaces are available in both the Sheaff Family Gallery and the Whakatāne Community Board Gallery for small to medium-sized shows. For artists wondering which space would be most suitable for their vision, Exhibitions team member Amanda Perfect suggests having a chat.
“It’s OK to ask questions if you haven’t been through the submission process before,” she says. “I think sometimes artists might be worried that we have a very strict set of rules or that a submission is going to be something complicated or scary, but we’re just excited to see what you have been working on! Our job is to help you turn your idea into a reality.”
Te Kōputu a te whanga a Toi is home to three art gallery spaces that host between 11 and 13 exhibitions a year. Brookfields Lawyers Gallery is usually reserved by larger touring exhibitions, which can last up to five months each, while the smaller spaces have a much quicker turnaround.
“That number of exhibitions strikes the perfect balance between keeping it fresh and being able to invest the right amount of time in terms of workload,”,” Ms Perfect explains. “There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into staging a successful exhibition, a significant number of people hours. We spend time planning with the exhibitor before the works are onsite, and sometimes we even have to paint walls or build furniture. Every detail is considered, right down to how many printed words are used in the display, tying in the advertising material, and exactly how each light is angled to enhance the artworks. It’s a very rewarding process and can be a valuable learning experience for artists working alongside us.”
More information is available on the Whakatāne Museum and Arts website, and anyone interested in making a submission has until Tuesday, 30 November. All applicants will be contacted with outcomes in December 2021.