last days to apply!
Call for applications until Monday November 18 midnight (Paris time)


With support from the Louis Roederer Foundation
and Polka


THE RENCONTRES D’ARLES IS PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE LAUNCH OF THE 2025 DISCOVERY AWARD.
SINCE ITS CREATION, THE MISSION OF THE RENCONTRES D’ARLES DISCOVERY AWARD HAS BEEN TO SHOWCASE EMERGING ART AND ARTISTS.

The Rencontres d'Arles is opening its call for applications for the 2025 Discovery Award, part of the festival's 56th edition.

The award's aim is to promote the work of the selected artists, who will be showcased in the Discovery Award exhibition; and to reward the winning projects with the jury award of €15,000 and public award of €5,000.

Since 2021, the Rencontres d'Arles Discovery Award has integrated organizations that foster emerging artists—community spaces, independent exhibition sites, artist-run spaces, hybrid exhibition spaces, galleries, institutions, foundations—that clear the ground for, identify, and support artists. 

These organizations, important actors in supporting photography and artists, thus become mediators and discoverers, introducing to the Discovery Award artists whose work they have identified and followed.

These organizations are invited to propose an exhibition project by an artist they support whose work has recently been discovered or deserves to be seen by an international audience.

Projects selected for exhibition in the 2025 edition of the Rencontres d'Arles, in the Discovery Award exhibition, will be accompanied by the festival team and an exhibition curator invited by the Rencontres d'Arles.

This year, the curator invited by the Discovery Award 2025 is César González-Aguirre.

During opening week, a jury selected by the festival will determine the jury award, which rewards an artist and the artist's supporting organization by an acquisition of artworks in the amount of €15,000; festival visitors will determine the public award, which rewards an artist and the artist's supporting organization by an acquisition of artworks in the amount of €5,000.



ABOUT CÉSAR GONZÁLEZ-AGUIRRE
Born in 1991 in Mexico City.
Lives and works in Mexico City.

Independent curator. His research reflects on the relationship between memory and desire. He was chief curator of Centro de la Imagen from 2018 to 2021. Among his main projects are Pirates on the Boulevard. Agustín Martínez Castro (Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City. 2018), The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Nan Goldin (Centro de la Imagen, MX. 2019), Bewitched Clothing (Outsiderland, Amsterdam, 2022) and Positive Negative. Cultural Reactions against AIDS in Mexico (Centro de la Imagen,MX. 2022). He founded in 2019 the Contemporary Images Platform for Centro de la Imagen, a website dedicated to promote new talents in mexican photography, composed by a directory and a magazine called Fluid.

He is co-founder and member of Archivo Memoria Trans México and director of Drama, an independent space dedicated to mexican queer photography. Currently he works with Aristeo Jiménez and Rafael Manrique, both photographers, visual artist María Eugenia Chellet, and he is also developing a research across different disruptive archives. 


For this new edition of the Rencontres d’Arles Discovery Award, I would like to find out proposals that consider photography as a critical tool, capable of reflecting about local contexts immersed in a global world, but also likely to play a key role in imagining and understanding the present to shape the future. In a context of connected geographies in unequal ways, what kind of images could constitute a new board to live and share life?
César González-Aguirre



THE DISCOVERY AWARD RULES AND REGULATIONS


ARTICLE 1 — PURPOSE

The Rencontres d'Arles Discovery Award has two missions: 

→ Promotion of work by artists using images through exhibitions of projects shortlisted for the Discovery Award.

→ Reward of the winning artists & organizations : The Jury Award honors the winning artist and supporting organization through the acquisition of a selection of works in the amount of €15,000 (including tax). The Public Award honors the winning artist and supporting organization through the acquisition of a selection of works in the amount of €5,000 (including tax). The works thus acquired enter the collection of the Rencontres d'Arles.

The Discovery Award is part of the Rencontres d'Arles exhibition program. An exhibition curator is associated with the Discovery Award and will work on the development of the projects, from the selection to exhibition design, from concept to completion.

Each project selected will have an exhibition space of approximately 10 linear meters (50 m²). The exhibition design for this space will be determined after the selection is made, in cooperation with the exhibition curator and the Rencontres d'Arles team.


ARTICLE 2 — TERMS OF PARTICIPATION

Each organization (gallery, art center, community space, independent exhibition site, institution) may present, in the form of an exhibition proposal, a single artist (or a single artists' collective working as a single artistic entity).

The application must: 

→ propose a photographic exhibition project by one artist whose work has recently been discovered.

→ be submitted by an organization only (artists may not apply directly).

Organizations that may participate are: galleries, art centers, community spaces, public institutions, and independent exhibition spaces. The organization's primary function must be the exhibition of artists' work.

→ if selected, the organization and artist agree not to show the project, in whole or in part, before its exhibition at the Rencontres d'Arles 2025.

→ if selected, the organization and artist agree to produce the exhibition project for the Rencontres d'Arles, based on the production budget supplied by the festival.


ARTICLE 3 — APPLICATION

The application must be submitted online using the link below before MIDNIGHT (PARIS TIME), november 18, 2024
→ RENCONTRESARLES.TYPEFORM.COM

It must consist of the following, in a single pdf (10Mb max.), including (in order):

→ a short biography of the artist (700 keystrokes maximum, including spaces); a CV showing the artist's exhibitions and publications; a portfolio of the artist's work

→ a short written presentation of the organization (400 keystrokes maximum, including spaces); the organization's website; and a chronological list of exhibitions presented by the organization

→ title of exhibition project and presentation text for the exhibition project (1,500 keystrokes maximum, including spaces); images of works to be exhibited, specifying their number, dimensions, medium, and how they will be presented

→ estimated production budget for the exhibition, based on the template of the application's online model.

Texts must be in French or/and English.


ARTICLE 4 — PRODUCTION AND EXHIBITION TERMS FOR SHORTLISTED PROJECTS

→ The organization is responsible for:
- production of the works in ready-to-hang condition
- roundtrip transportation of the works to Arles or to Paris (in this latter case, the festival can provide of the transportation to Arles) and insurance of works during transportation
- supervision of the project with the artist, in coordination with the Rencontres d'Arles and the curator

The organization and/or artist agree to retrieve the works after the exhibition.

→ The Rencontres d'Arles will be responsible for: 
- providing a production budget envelope of €3,000, for the production of the project exhibited
- insuring the works (for their production value) during their exhibition at the Rencontres d'Arles
- exhibition design
- mounting and dismantling of works
- the artist's visit in Arles: 2 nights' accommodation in Arles during opening week of the festival; and the artist's roundtrip travel to Arles


ARTICLE 5 — AMOUNT OF THE DISCOVERY AWARD

The jury award of the Discovery Award is determined during the festival's opening week by a jury of experts invited by the Rencontres d'Arles. 
It is bestowed on one artist's project and the artist's supporting organization.
It is in the amount of €15,000 (including tax); in the form of acquisition of the artist's works.  The works acquired enter the collection of the Rencontres d'Arles.


ARTICLE 6 — AMOUNT OF DISCOVERY AWARD PUBLIC

The public award of the Discovery Award is determined by festival visitors' vote. 
It is bestowed on one artist and supporting organization among the projects exhibited. 
It is in the amount of €5,000 (including tax) in the form of acquisition of the artist's works. 
Works acquired enter the collection of the Rencontres d'Arles.


ARTICLE 7 — TIMETABLE

→ September 12, 2024: online application opening

→ November 18, 2024, midnight (Paris time): online application deadline

→ January 2025: shortlisted projects announced on the Rencontres d'Arles website

→ January 2025: exhibition planning timetable sent out for shortlisted projects; preparation of communications materials for press conference

→ February 2025: exhibition space selected; communications materials delivered

→ March 2025: Rencontres d'Arles press conference

→ March to May: launch through completion of project production

→ May 2025: works received in Paris or Arles

→ June 2025: exhibition mounted

→ Summer 2025: Discovery Award projects exhibited as part of the 56th edition of the Rencontres d'Arles