Open Call for Curators
State of Fashion is launching an Open Call for Curators for its 2024 Biennale, taking place in Arnhem, The Netherlands. The platform is currently looking for visionary thinkers and makers with an outspoken view on the challenges the world faces at the moment, the necessity for fundamental change, and the role that fashion plays in this transition. For its Biennale State of Fashion is calling out to individuals as well as groups, teams and collectives, with groundbreaking and contemporary ideas on how to use the cultural and courageous space* of the Biennale to actively challenge and change the existing fashion system.
The Open Call
The main outcomes and findings of Ways of Caring serve as inspiration and starting point for the 2024 Biennale. Actively challenging prevailing perspectives and making room for untold stories and experiences remains an important goal. But can we define the unequal power relations between the dominant global north and the global south and how can we share and disseminate non-western knowledge? Could the concept of the ‘exhibition’ be challenged and enriched so that it invites and inspires the visitor? We call upon the new curator (-team) to provide direction and shape a vision for new forms of presentation.
The ambition is to make the theme attractive to both professionals and the general public, with education as a focal point. Ultimately, we hope to encourage behavioural changes, new practices as well as creating awareness.
About State of Fashion
State of Fashion is recognized as a pioneering platform that explores urgently needed radical change in fashion. Since its conception, State of Fashion has robustly addressed the environmental as well as the social footprint of the fashion industry, while uncovering new materials and production techniques. This framework was also the primary focus of its successful 2018 Biennale ‘Searching for the New Luxury’, curated by José Teunissen.
In 2020-2021, State of Fashion reflected with This is an Intervention on the current state of fashion, as well as redefining its own position as a platform. A diverse group of thinkers and makers from all over the world claimed the platform for eight months and unraveled the problems in the industrial fashion system, our role and the devastating effects on the earth and its inhabitants. It also became clear that – to ensure true diversity, equity and inclusiveness – a critical look and rigorous change is needed in the way the fashion system as a whole is organized. A radical approach is needed that tackles the problem at its roots. But where to start?
With This is an Intervention, State of Fashion set the course for the second edition of the Biennale in 2022.
The starting point for the Open Call for Curators for the 2022 Biennale consisted of three key questions that touch on the themes of Humanity, Equity and Community. The questions served as an open invitation for a discussion with the curatorial team of the 2022 Biennale, which covered the following topics; How can fashion contribute to a world that is more humane, a world in which agency & ownership becomes a shared responsibility with the core values of cooperation, balance and harmony? How do we ensure that we reflect critically on our activities and practice and how do we create a sustainable knowledge sharing system?
The selected curator team, consisting of Fashion Open Studio and NOT___ENOUGH Collective developed the central theme Ways of Caring. The State of Fashion Biennale looked for opportunities to make the fashion industry more sustainable and caring. Within 7 program components more than 70 designers, artists and makers, from all over the world, worked on the broken relationship between the production of fashion and the wearer for 5 weeks. In addition to an exhibition, State of Fashion 2022 included 85 activities at 5 locations in the center of Arnhem, the city of sustainable fashion. Every day the range of activities was different, interactive and created together by makers and visitors.
Sign up
The Open Call for Curators will be launched on Thursday 26 January on www.stateoffashion.org, the Open Call will close on Sunday 5 March 2023.
State of Fashion will be supported in the assessment of all entries by an International Creative Advisory Council, consisting of Omoyemi Akerele, Tamsin Blanchard, Otto von Busch, Orsola de Castro, Carla Fernández, Aditi Mayer and NOT____ENOUGH Collective.
The new curator (or curatorial team) will be announced in the second half of April 2023.
The State of Fashion Biennale will take place in May and June of 2024.
APPLY HERE FOR THE OPEN CALL FOR CURATORS
Dates Open Call for Curators: Thursday, January 26 – Sunday, March 5, 2023
If you have any further questions or concerns in the meantime, please refer to www.stateoffashion.org or contact us at opencall@stateoffashion.org.
INSTAGRAM: @stateoffashionnl
HASHTAG: #stateoffashion #opencall
Application Deadline
The deadline of the Open Call for Curators is 5 March 2023.
APPLY HERE FOR THE OPEN CALL FOR CURATORS
Terms & Conditions
* The term ‘courageous term’ is borrowed from Caulfield-Sriklad
