EMERGING CURATORS PROGRAMME

APPLY NOW
DEADLINE 5pm, Sunday 4 August

This Autumn, Photo Fringe presents the eleventh edition of what has become one of the largest and most inclusive photography festivals in the UK.

We invite early-career curators to apply to a unique and free professional development programme to develop your skills through hands-on experience delivering this year’s festival. We are particularly looking to offer the opportunity to curators with protected characteristics.

The Photo Fringe Emerging Curators Programme will enhance your career prospects, giving you the confidence to move forward in the competitive world of curating and provides you with a support network that they can build on into the future. A learning experience rarely found outside postgraduate curating courses, successful applicants will gain experience of delivering an ambitious festival of photography including exhibitions and events both online and in-venue, while having the opportunity to attend a tailored programme of seminars by professionals who operate at the forefront of photography curatorial practice.

Photo Fringe 2024 takes the theme of Common Ground.

Finding common ground is a starting point for positive change. Like photography, common ground can bridge divides, challenge stereotypes and create space for collaboration and connection.

We want this year's festival to disrupt traditional hierarchies and encourage a mutually beneficial exchange of perspectives, skills and ideas.

Our theme was inspired by acts of reciprocity between generations of women farming together in Haringey, photographed by Arpita Shah for our recent We Feed The UK co-commission with The Gaia Foundation.

Many of our exhibitors will choose to present work responding to our theme - although it is by no means compulsory to do so and exhibitors are free to interpret the theme however they wish.

Emerging Curators' Programme

This programme will be managed and mentored by author, curator and art writer, Ricardo Reverón Blanco.

Two applicants will be selected to:

• Work with the Photo Fringe 2024 team to deliver the festival
• Attend a series of talks by professional photography curators
• Work together to curate an event as part of the festival programme
• Support the installation of the Photo Fringe Hubs
• Help launch the festival and contribute to the launch event
• Select one festival exhibitor to win the ‘Emerging Curators’ Favourite’ for the Danny Wilson Memorial Award
• Devise a guided tour of Photo Fringe 2024 online and in-venue exhibitions
• Write their own ‘Curator’s Trail’ to be published on the Photo Fringe website
• Help provide audience interpretation at the Collectives Hub
• Help to document the festival

You will be expected to be available for at least one day per week, plus at least three days over the festival install week, with an overall minimum commitment of 20 days, starting on 12 August and ending in November 2024.

A bursary of £500 each to cover travel and sundry expenses taking part is available to applicants, with funding gratefully received from Arts Council England.

Eligibility

This year we will prioritise applications from people with protected characteristics of any kind.

You are:
– an emerging and early-career curator of any age from the South East of England – available for interview in the first week of August
– available for at least one day per week from September to November 2024, inclusive
– available 13 August for the first session at The National Portrait Gallery in London
– available between 1 to 5 October 2024 for the Photo Fringe install period
- available to support the opening weekend from the 4 to 7 October
– available to work independently outside of this schedule
– based in Brighton & Hove, Portsmouth or the surrounding area and able to travel

How to apply

Deadline: 5pm Sunday 4 August

Please send your application to: info@photofringe.org and mark the subject line as: Application, Emerging Curators Programme 2024

Interviews: Wednesday 7 August 2024 (online)

To apply please email:
1. A covering letter (max 500 words) stating:

• why you need this opportunity
• what relevant skills and experience you have
• how this opportunity will benefit your professional development

You must demonstrate:

• a need for this opportunity to further your career
• an ability to work as part of a team
• excellent communication skills
• an enthusiasm for both the conceptual and practical elements of the festival
• and a willingness to learn

Please also confirm your availability to participate fully in this opportunity

2. Please write 500 words max on an idea for an event on the festival's theme Common Ground.

3. Your CV, no longer than one side of A4.

Alumni testimonials:

“The Photo Fringe 2016 Trainee Curators programme is an invaluable opportunity to gain practical skills alongside thoughtful mentorship. A fantastic springboard into a career in the arts” Ruby Rees-Sheridan

“The Photo Fringe Trainee Curators programme surpassed my expectations at providing a practical and collaborative experience of curating photography. Working together, with lots of support from the Fringe team and other industry professionals, made it possible to curate a successful exhibition and events within a short time-frame; the programme has given me the confidence to curate exhibitions independently in the future.” Sarah French

“I found the Brighton Photo Fringe’s curatorial programme an invaluable experience. This unique opportunity of hands-on training for one of the UK’s most successful photography festivals is a must for anyone considering a career in curating.” Edwin Coomasaru

“I found the whole experience very useful and learnt much more than I expected to... I feel it was an excellent opportunity overall and I am very grateful to have been selected, I gained an invaluable amount from it and met some incredible people through the process.“ Lulu Evans

“We were given excellent mentoring and workshops and this helped us turnaround the workload fairly easily and within the timescale... Support and advice for us was always at hand from the project and technical teams. In this sense it was unique compared with other curatorial projects - I’ve never had so much support!” Sunil Shah

Supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Image © Jamila Prowse, Reflections of Us