OPEN CALL for
SOLARPUNK ART
EXTENDED DEADLINE May 7, 2024
ALL POWER ON EARTH
COMES FROM THE SUN
Curated by
Solarpunk Surf Club
and friends
The sun is the object of the plant – an indispensable object to it, confirming its life – just as the plant is an object of the sun, being an expression of the life-awakening power of the sun, of the sun’s objective essential power.
– Karl Marx
To bring the sun, the wind, the earth, indeed the world of life back into technology, into the means of human survival, would be a revolutionary renewal of man’s ties to nature . . . A real ecological system would emerge, a delicately interlaced pattern of local resources, honored by continual study and artful modification. With a true sense of regionalism every resource would find its place in a natural, stable balance, an organic unity of social, technological, and natural elements. Art would assimilate technology by becoming social art, the art of the community as a whole.
— Murray Bookchin
ALL POWER ON EARTH COMES FROM THE SUN is a field sampling of contemporary ecosocial art exploring autonomy, care, and the potential for a more free and ecological world. This group exhibition, curated by Solarpunk Surf Club, gathers prefigurative specimens, tracks movements in positive deviance, and maps the reenchantment of nature in the Bluegrass and beyond.
The exhibition will be on view from Friday, August 2nd to Friday, August 23rd at Bolivar Gallery, situated within the UK School of Art and Visual Studies (SAVS) in Lexington, Kentucky. We will commence the 'Summer of Solarpunk' with a special event to mark the solstice on June 20 and have additional events scheduled for July leading up to the exhibition opening. Further dates and locations to be announced.
Open to everyone. The only limitation is that entries must represent original works which address the broad themes described above.
Open to all traditional and non-traditional genre and media. We are media agnostic, meaning we have no collective predisposition towards any particular kind or style of art.
In addition to 2-D, 3-D, and moving-image art media, entries may comprise the following:
The preceding categories are not exclusive or binding; entries may take additional forms not described here.
No size restrictions on submissions other than what can fit in our space, on our walls, and through our doors. Artists whose work may exceed these limits are welcome to contact us for more specific information (solarpunksurfclub@gmail.com).
There are no requirements on the timeframe when submitted works must have been made.
$5 for unlimited entries. Fees are non-refundable. Entry fee must be paid by credit card, ACH direct debit, PayPal, or bank transfer.
Any fee payment must reference your name, or we must be notified if another party is paying your fee.
Solarpunk Surf Club is an independent artist collective fiscally hosted by the Open Collective Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit and software platform that allows us to directly democratically manage our finances in full transparency.
All proceeds from entry fees fund exhibition-related expenses. The entire exhibition project’s budget can be viewed at any time on Open Collective.
UPDATE (3/15/2024)—with the sunsetting of Open Collective Foundation, we are temporarily collecting entry fees via PayPal. The payment page is available here.
Artists may choose to sell work on display, in which case Solarpunk Surf Club will contact the artist with inquiries. Solarpunk Surf Club takes a 30% commission on each work sold; please consider this when pricing work.
Solarpunk Surf Club will retain images of accepted artwork, and reserves the right to use these images in publications and exhibition publicity. Beyond such use, the artist retains full copyright of exhibited work.
All entry files (regardless of type or media) must be named with artist's last name (underscore) first name, followed by the entry number as noted on the entry form (for example: Butler_Octavia_1.jpg). Please DO NOT include any other information in the file name, such as title of work, etc.
Detail, installation, or alternate view images must include the word 'detail' in the filename (for example: Jones_Mike_1detail1.jpg).
The image files should be in HIGH QUALITY .jpg or .png format, with minimum dimensions of 1000 pixels in any direction (about 13”) and be 72dpi. This should result in most image files ranging from 700kb to 2mb in file size but this is only approximate.
For all film, video and moving image works, submit a link to a viewable online copy of each work AND a single representative still image uploaded to the submission form. The work should be shown online in its full length. Note that a still image must still be submitted to represent the entry in addition to the video material.
Video links should be provided on the entry form for each work in the VIEWING LINK section, and should link directly to online or downloadable content that does NOT require a login, password, or membership to view. These may be in the form of Youtube, Vimeo, Dropbox, or other similar links. Links to video entries must remain valid and active through the notification of jury results.
Works involving AI-generated content must disclose this information in the AI DISCLOSURE section of the submission form.
Proposals for work to be completed must include at least one image representative of the work (study, sketch, mockup, rendering, etc.), along with a detailed description of the piece (medium, size, concept). Accepted work that differs from the digitally submitted image may be excluded from the exhibition at Solarpunk Surf Club’s discretion.
Solarpunk Surf Club will host online information sessions in February and March 2024 to overview the curatorial framework, explain the submission process, and answer questions.
Solarpunk Surf Club is an artist collective that creates and curates egalitarian platforms for surfing the waves of still-possible worlds. We elaborate on social ecological aesthetics AKA solarpunk in order to politicize, historicize, and demystify our collective utopian future.
Solarpunk Surf Club has presented projects internationally in galleries, museums, festivals, conferences, libraries, activist gatherings, and forest occupations. Our collective received the Future Art Award: ECOSYSTEM X from MOZAIK Philanthropy (Los Angeles) and a Games for Change Award (New York) for our artist’s game, Solarpunk Futures.
Read more: https://www.solarpunksurf.club/