a soft infrastructure

work shared via Open Call have been published on the website as single entries or upon consent as collective publications furthering relations between scholars, artists, and researchers. Practices of co-authorship, anonymous authorships, and individual authorship have been encouraged in their multiplicity. Languages are fluid vehicles and contributions from different tongues were supported. Practitioners expressing themselves in single or mixed-media forms found a supportive space in Open Call.

working with justice and  solidarity in mind. 

Black and Brown artists, those with disabilities, neurodivergents, queer and trans artists, those from working class background and those at the intersections of those routes were encouraged to request the highest fee to share their work and support their labour.

In 2021, we used a solidarity pay framework within which disabled and racialised beings who are not working full time or in secured positions in institutions are paid more as they are more at risk of unemployment, low income, and poverty. Contributors to Open Space were paid a maximum of £50 for existing work and a maximum of £150 for new work.

In 2022, contributors were all paid £350.

In 2023 with a respective budget of a £1,200, 5 artist-researchers took honeymoons to feed their practice and their cups. Have a look at the experiments available on the home page.

We have extended invitations

In 2021, invitations to share entries (written, audio, visual, audio-visual) were issued on a rolling basis.

We also kept a shared database with artist-researchers from which we issued further invitations.

In 2022 Open Call re-invited previous contributors to Open Call website and Open Call series of public events. 14 contributors are currently working towards a print and digital special issue coming out in Autumn 2022.

2023 was the year of the artist-researcher honeymoons.

*year 1 & 2 slow research, (co-)curation, and working group facilitation is performed by melissandre varin in close contact with members of the work group year 1 and co-curators year 2. In year 3 melissandre invited artist-researchers to take honeymoons. After 3 years of experimentations, the initiative stopped following a change in Drama HE funding structure.