2021 Indian Ocean Craft Triennial - call for submissions

The first 2021 Indian Ocean Craft Triennial is announced - on the theme Curiosity and Rituals of the Everyday 2021 and will take place in Perth, Australia. This is a preliminary opportunity to submit your work for exhibtion in the 2021 Indian Ocean Craft Triennial as an exhibiting artist. You can also submit your idea for an event/activity to occur as part of, or in complement to the Indian Ocean Craft Triennial due to take place in Perth in 2021 as a part of the satelite program.

The inaugural 2021 Indian Ocean Craft Triennial: Curiosity and Rituals of the Everyday presents the latest modes and conversations in craft making around the Indian Ocean Group of Countries (IOR). Curated in Perth, Australia across the vast Indian Ocean, it brings together works from several countries with a curatorial vision that explores our innate curiosity and rituals that connect us to elements beyond ourselves and immediate geography. Curators of the 2021 edition are Jude van der Merwe, Maggie Baxter, Carola Akindele-Obe, Qassim Saad, Chad Creighton and Gerald Sanyangore. The Indian Ocean Craft Triennial will enable cultural sharing and provide a platform for diverse community engagement locally, and internationally.

Watch the video announcing the event

While societies globally experience rapid and vast transformations based on technology, innovation, and mass communication, the emotional value of craft and the hand-made is increasing. As studio artists and traditional artisans respond to new circumstances, we witness a re-engagement of contemporary craft by makers willing to sustain the value and benefit of the hand-made in contemporary life.

Throughout the Indian Ocean region craft objects and artifacts have traditionally been linked to specific uses. Whether on a daily basis, for special ceremonies or acts of worship, rituals of the everyday touch each of us in different ways:

Votive: describing systems and formalities of belief

Family/Utility: objects with their roots in function and domestic use

Shelter: referencing the architectures of physical protection

Adornment: a process of embellishment or beautification.

We welcome submissions from groups and individuals across WA for the satelite program with the main exhibition open to practitioners around Australia and countries in the Indian Ocean Rim Group of Countries.

Please share with your craft community.

Eligibility

Any individual or group with an active craft practice; galleries and art spaces. Please note: not everyone who applies may be accepted.

Applications will be accepted from AUSTRALIA, BANGLADESH, COMOROS, INDIA, INDONESIA, IRAN, KENYA, MADAGASCAR, MALAYSIA, MAURITIUS, MOZAMBIQUE, OMAN, SEYCHELLES, SINGAPORE, SOMALIA, SOUTH AFRICA, SRI LANKA, TANZANIA, THAILAND, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, YEMEN.

Deadline for submissions: 2 September 2019