CURATORS, INSTALLATIONS & PERFORMANCES GUIDELINES

MIX NYC presents a festival of queer experimental media in New York CIty. This annual five-day event presents over 200 films, videos, installations and presentations by artists from all over the world. The festival is an opportunity for filmmakers, curators, and audience members to meet in a grassroots environment to share information and insights about creating non-receptive media. It is New York’s longest-running lesbian and gay film festival.

MIX NYC invites proposals for curators, installations and performances for our 23rd festival.

POSTMARK DEADLINE: July 5, 2010

GUEST CURATORS

Each year the MIX festival happily presents programs conceived, organized and presented by guest curators, including the annual installments from our sister festivals in Mexico and Brasil. Guest curated programs allow MIX to expand beyond each year’s call for work, present innovative programming and provide opportunities for networking and career building for the artists and curators involved.

Guest curators in previous years have included such luminaries as LTTR, Stuart Comer and Butt Magazine, Cheryl Dunye and Thomas Allen Harris, Gita Reddy and David Dasharath Kalal, Cecilia Dougherty, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Miranda July, Astria Suparak, Scott Berry, Gayatri Gopinath, Cathy Lee Crane, Yann Beauvais, Beth Stryker, Alisa Lebow, Mary Ellen Strom, José Muñoz, Ernesto M. Foronda, Tammy Rae Carland, Jon Gartenberg, Kathy Burdette and Daryl Chin.

Curators are invited to submit proposals for programs of film, video and digital media. In addition to these formats, MIX welcomes proposals for multimedia installations, media-based performances, interactive projects, and any other alternative explorations of moving-image form. Guest curators are particularly encouraged to connect new or underserved communities to MIX, especially proposals from curators, artists and educators who are lesbian, gay, bi, transgender or two-spirit people of color. Works by or about LGBTQ youth are strongly encouraged. Each selected curator or curatorial team is paid a modest honororium intended to cover basic costs. Expenses such as rental fees for proposed work are subject to prior approval from MIX.

All proposals will be considered for the annual MIX Festival, which takes place in the fall, as well as for our free traveling Community Screenings that occur in neighborhoods around the five boroughs of New York City.

GUIDELINES FOR CURATORS

Curatorial proposals must observe the following guidelines:

• Optimal program running time: 75 minutes.
• Programs may be curated by one or more curators.
• The proposed program must incorporate sexualities that transgress the heterosexual norm, either through the sensibility expressed in the work, the subject matter, or both, The curator(s) and individual artists do not have to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Mixed-gender programs are encouraged.
• At least 50% of the proposed selections must be New York, U.S. or world premieres.
• Programs must emphasize new and innovative experimental work.
• Older or classic selections are permitted, but exclusively retrospective or repertory programs are ineligible.
• Feature-length works are ineligible.
• Curators may include their own work in the program.
• Post-screening discussions or panels are strongly encouraged, but lectures or talks without films are ineligible.
• 50% of the program selections should be confirmed by the proposal deadline.
• Guest curators from out of town are required to have a local NYC-based liaison who can do grass-roots promotion, and other in-person tasks.
• Guest curators are responsible for publicising and introducing their programs at MIX.
• Guest curators are responsible for locating new work and should be familiar with new productions. MIX may also recommend works received through our Call for Entries to guest curators for their consideration in programming, but the final selection remains the decision of the guest curator(s).
• Guest curators are responsible for booking all titles and confirming all arrangements for their programs, and for obtaining completed entry forms and publicity materials for all selected works by August 1, 2010.

CURATORS: HOW TO SUBMIT

Please send a concise written proposal of no more than two pages to the address below.

• Include the title, year, format, running time and brief descriptions of specific works in the program, and clearly indicate which are confirmed.
• Explain as clearly as possible the unifying premise, theme, approach, or other principle around which the program is based.
• Please explain the rationale for including the specified works, and describe the strategies for obtaining the works if they are unconfirmed.
• Outline your plans for publicizing the program, specifying any particular communities or constituencies you intend to reach with the program, and any organizations you would collaborate with for this purpose. Provide contact information of your local NYC liaison, and explain the duties you expect the liaison to perform.
• If your program is site-specific to a space other than MIX’s core venue, please provide details in your proposal.
• A resume or c.v. for the curator(s) must be attached to the proposal.

MIX programming staff will review curatorial proposals and notify curators within one month following the deadline.

INSTALLATIONS & PERFORMANCES

MIX has presented installations since 1991 and performances intermittently since 1987. We are committed to showing these kinds of interdisciplinary works and giving them the space they need. Past installations have included varied projccts, such as single-channel works on a monitor, works for multiple projectors, bicycle-powered video projection, store-front window projections, interactive video, video games, internet-based work, double-projection slides, bathroom installations, and more...

Past installation artists include: Alice O’Malley, Suzy Silver and Hllary Harp, James Duesing, Kadet Kuhne, Vanessa Renwick, Tara Mateik, Michelle Handelman, Julie Tolentino, Tina Paul, Jacqueline Goss, Steve Reinke, Shu Lea Cheang, and many others.

INSTALLATIONS & PERFORMANCES: HOW TO SUBMIT

• Please send a concise written proposal to the address below, describing the work from a visual and technical standpoint.
• Include documentation (photos on CD or video) for existing work, or sketches and designs for work in progress.
• Specify venues that have shown the work before, or commitments for upcoming shows.
• Specify what equipment will be used in the installation or performance, and indicate what you will supply, and what you need MIX to supply. Please keep in mind that our resources are extremely limited, although we will do our best to accommodate you.
• Clearly indicate how much space your performance or installation needs, and how you envision it being installed.
• Artists should be prepared to install & de-install their own work, and will need to be in New York in the days immediately prior to and after the festival.
• A resume or c.v. must be attached to the proposal.

DEADLINES & REQUIREMENTS: ALL PROPOSALS

• All proposals must be postmarked by July 5, 2010.
• Delivery deadlines for installation-based and performance-based programs will be determined on an individual basis.
• All exhibition materials for film & video shows must be received at MIX no later than October 6, 2010.
• There is no submission fee for curators, performances or installations.