Curatorial Fellowships

Parallel Curatorial Fellowships

Parallel will commission six independent and/or emerging art workers who identify as CaLD (especially from culturally under-represented backgrounds) to develop projects that explore opportunities for structural change at MAMA. Participants will be mentored by CaLD researchers, curators and museum directors, as well as First Nations curators and leaders to develop vocabularies, protocols, knowledge and networks across multiple cultures.

MAMA and Parallel are committed to better understanding the relationship between museums and experiences of migration, dispossession and colonisation. With Parallel, MAMA will play host to museological and curatorial experiments that can run beside, adjacent to and beyond conventional museum structures. MAMA will offer resources and support our six participants to produce new projects, which will be central to envisaging how MAMA, and other Australian regional art museums more broadly, may reimagine its structures and support diverse art workers.

Call for Applications

Parallel and the Murray Art Museum Albury (MAMA) invite applications from six art workers to develop curatorial projects over a period of two years. Parallel invites applications from all art workers, including artists, curators and researchers who identify as culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) and who are invested in structural change in Australian art museums.

The six curatorial commissions will advance Parallel’s aim to better understand methods for structural change at MAMA and beyond. The curatorial commissions can span experimental museology, collection re-hangs, institutional critique, exhibition making, digital projects, public programming and writing/editing (and more). Participants will become Fellows within the Parallel program and be invited to take part in various aspects of the Australia Research Council research project, including a Curatorial Intensive, Symposium, lectures, workshops, and publications, and will receive mentoring and professional development opportunities from the Parallel Team, including MAMA staff and the Advisory Network.

Applications are due 5pm (AEDT) December 22, 2021.

Who you are:

• An independent and/or early career arts worker with a demonstrated interest in curating, museology, and/or public programming
• Identify as being CaLD and under-represented in Australian art institutions
• Committed to rethinking and reimagining museums while working collaboratively with fellow curators, artists, researchers and industry peers

What we offer:

• $7000 curator fee
• All fees, including artists fees, artwork loans, installation and/or public programs costs, to support your curatorial project (using NAVA rates)
• Administration, installation, marketing and professional documentation of your project at MAMA in 2023
• All travel costs to attend the Parallel Curatorial Intensive at MAMA for five days in early 2022
• All travel costs for research and development week at MAMA in late 2022
• All travel costs to attend the Parallel Symposium at MAMA in early 2024
• Ongoing mentorship from Parallel, MAMA and the Advisory Network (each fellow will be paired with one member of the Advisory Network after the selection process is completed in a consultative and collaborative manner)
  *Travel costs include transport, accommodation and per diems

How to apply:

Submit the following documents via our online Google Form by 5pm (AEDT) December 22, 2021:

• Current CV (one page)
• Examples of previous work, especially those relevant to Parallel, including images and/or writing samples (5–10 pages).
• Responses to the three following questions, uploaded in one single file:
  • What ideas and research drive your practice? (200 words)
  • Why do you wish to participate in Parallel? (300 words)
  • How will you engage with the context of MAMA during the curatorial fellowship? (300 words)
• Bear in mind the Selection Criteria (listed in the application form)