Open Call 2025

Deadline Thu 15 Feb 2024, 12:00

O—Overgaden explicitly invites artists to submit an application based on their practice, rather than applying with an already defined exhibition proposal. Artists are thus invited to describe recent and long-term developments, methodologies, and continuous transformations, as well as thoughts on coming developments within their practice.

Instead of asking for a specific project fitted to the institution, O—Overgaden concentrates on molding the institution to the artistic practice and providing support as it develops, adapting to the artistic production’s material changes, conceptual crossroads, unexpected turns, and detours that take place in the process of making an exhibition. It is thus the idea that the development of the exhibition takes place in close dialogue between the artist and O—Overgaden’s curatorial and installation team.

In order to secure resources for the changing exhibitions and exhibitors, Overgaden’s Open Call currently centers on solo shows, whether a single artist’s work, artistic duos, groups of artists working collectively, or an artist and a curator in collaboration. 

• Application deadline: February 15, 2024, 13:00 (Copenhagen time)

Please submit your application via O—Overgaden’s online application platform. You can find the link for this at the bottom of this page. As well as filling in the form, please submit a CV and documentation as one PDF file, maximum size 5MB.

More information about the application material:

• Summary & Motivation: Please submit a brief summary of your practice description, adding a few thoughts on why an exhibition at O—Overgaden makes sense now (maximum 1,000 characters incl. spacing).

• Practice description: Please submit a description of your practice and artistic processes including thoughts on upcoming developments (maximum 3,000 characters incl. spacing).

• CV and documentation/portfolio (to be collected in one PDF, maximum 5MB): Please submit image documentation of previous and current artworks and production. O—Overgaden recommends that the portfolio contains a maximum of around 25 images. For performance, video, and sound pieces, please submit one or more links. For longer time-based works, we recommend preparing shorter preview clips with a maximum duration of 2–3 minutes. Please submit a CV of maximum 2 pages.

By uploading your material you consent to O—Overgaden keeping your application in our archive for up to two years.

• Deadline for applying is 13:00 on February 15, 2024.

• It typically takes a minimum of two months to process the Open Call applications and reply to all applicants. Responses will not include individual feedback.

In O—Overgaden’s Open Call programming, emphasis is put on experimental, emerging, and distinctive artistic practices, and on productions of critical and societal relevance. O—Overgaden focuses on offering support to and shedding light on new artistic positions or new aspects of an artistic practice, which often coincides with inviting artists early in their professional development.

The Open Call is overseen by the Director/Chief Curator of O—Overgaden. The Director/Chief Curator and Curator/Project Coordinator at O—Overgaden will be processing the applications.

Overall, O—Overgaden aims to present a program that spans a breadth of discourse, voices, and media. The program is devoted to actively working against inequality and discrimination, whether based on gender, ethnicity, background, body, or regional or international kinship.

A solo exhibition typically occupies a larger part of either O—Overgaden’s 1st or 2nd floor.

Artists who are offered an exhibition at O—Overgaden are invited into a collaboration with the organization’s curatorial and technical teams on the grounds of their practice, with the objectives of supporting and contextualizing the development of an exhibition—often including a new, large-scale production.

O—Overgaden collaborates with the artists in planning and setting up a budget for the exhibition and supports the artists in their own fundraising efforts, which is essential to secure the artist’s own production of new works.

O—Overgaden is further offering the invited artists an exhibition honorarium of 19,500 DKK and support for the exhibition production, financially as well as technically. O—Overgaden will organize the exhibition opening, one or more events related to the exhibition, photo documentation of the exhibition, and a print publication accompanying the exhibition. As well, O—Overgaden will promote the show both locally and internationally.