Minority Azerbaijan - Queer Art Festival Baku 2020

Queer Art Festival Baku 2020 is now open for entries!

CALL FOR ENTRIES: The first edition of Queer Art Festival Baku 2020, organised by Nafas LGBTI Azerbaijan Alliance is now open, inviting local visual artists to take part in sharing their most thrilling compositions.

Nafas LGBTI Azerbaijan Alliance is delighted to announce that its very first Queer Art Festival Baku 2020 competition is officially starting its first phase! This year’s entrance topic is “Queer x Azerbaian – My Body, My Identity, My Heritage”.

At this very moment, the population of Azerbaijan is facing variety of unprecedented challenges, aside from the Covid-19 pandemic — such as gender norms and stereotypes, misogyny, discrimination against women* and LGBTI+s, and exclusivity, to name a few examples. And to address these problems we invite artists to make a reform through their vision and tools.

The reform takes us back to where it all begins: to the public. Let’s focus on local queer communities - ourselves, our realities, our problems. The things we grow up with, the societies we try to fit in. Our biggest fears and wildest hopes. What kind of reform would we stand up for? Which face, which vision of society do we represent?

And let’s study ourselves where they actually are: in everyday lives! Queers are Everywhere! - Where society interacts, where discourses are shaped, where ideas for change are formed, where true participation happens.

The competition takes place in one round. The deadline is January 21, 2021. Artists will send their entries to [email protected] and after collecting all the work we will publish them on the festival's Instagram account (@queerartfest). After publishing, the pieces will be open for public voting for 2 weeks on @queerartfest. After finalizing the votes and evaluating all the entries, the first 3 finalists will receive a symbolic amount of cash prize.

Requirements:

- Artists of visual nature are called for exhibiting paintings, drawings, prints, graphics, photographs (can be either digital or film), short video installations, illustrations, crafts, and, or digital pieces in relation to the aforementioned subject of interest.

- Each artist can submit 1-3 entries (single page pieces or short graphic stories). Each piece must display one independent graphic story on a single page and must have a short description (max 150 words).

- Entries submitted need to be in a size and form that can be shared on social media.

- Entries can be in black and white or color and must be strictly connected to the topic of the exhibition.

- Entries can be either old pieces from artists’ portfolio or can be produced after the call

* We encourage young and amateur visual artists to be part of the festival as well – because, interpretations and the messages of the pieces will be considered as a stronger criterion than professionality while we assess the works to choose the winners

** We highly recommend artists to take into the account that the exhibition is local exhibition and pieces where local elements and related social problems are worked will be more appreciated

Criteria:

The competition will be judged by four jury members who will seek to identify artists of topic related and original products and stories.

Scores assessed by judges will be only 50% of the assessment, another 50% will come from votes that artists will get from social media.

Finalists will be invited to share a video with us where they represent and tell stories of their work and we will announce them through our Instagram page!