Photographic criticism competition: call for entries

Registration deadline | October 25, 2023
Deadline for submission of texts | October 29, 2023

 

CONTEXT:

In its mission to promote art criticism in Africa, the Association Nord Ouest Cultures has been organizing the Pan-African Art Criticism Competition since 2020. Endowed with the NO’OCULTURES Prize for Art Criticism, the competition aims to recognize the merit of an African art critic in a given discipline.

After cinema, music and literature in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively, the discipline chosen this year is photography. This edition is co-organized with the pan-African and multidisciplinary CRITIQUES AFRICAINES network, in partnership with the GOETHE-INSTITUT JOHANNESBURG, LES ATELIERS SAHM and the OBATALA contemporary art platform.

 

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS:

The competition is open to anyone meeting the following criteria:

– Be an African national or resident

– be fluent in French

– Be able to propose a review using a journalistic approach

– Have published at least two reviews on photography in particular and the visual arts in general in the last 12 months (have verification links or PDFs available).

 

FORM:

The article must be carefully presented. It must be unpublished, original, individual, written in French and include a title.

The text should be typed in Times New Roman, size 12, line spacing 1.5. It should be a minimum of 1000 words and a maximum of 1500 words.

 

TERMS AND CONDITIONS:

To take part in this competition, the following conditions must be met:

– Candidates must submit a written critique of the work (a photograph) chosen by the committee, giving priority to a personal, well-argued point of view. The link to view and access the work will be sent to candidates once their registration for the competition has been validated.

– Candidates must write a journalistic review of the work provided by the organization.

 

PLAGIARISM AND ORIGINALITY:

By virtue of their participation, authors indemnify the organizers against any claims by third parties concerning the originality of the reviews submitted.

In all cases,

– the texts selected must not have been previously published

– similarities in form or content with texts previously published on the subject in competition will result in DE FACTO DISQUALIFICATION.

Consequently, the jury will first check the ORIGINALITY of the texts submitted and duly received by the Organizing Committee; and, secondly, the AUTHENTICITY of the STATUS of their authors.

 

LEGAL CONDITIONS:

Submission of an entry implies full acceptance of these rules.

The organizers guarantee participants that their personal information will only be used for the purposes of this competition and will not be used for commercial purposes.

 

PARTICIPATION PROCEDURE

There are two stages:

Contest registration: Interested parties who meet the conditions are asked to complete the form available at this link,

Submission of the review: Once the registration has been validated, a link to the work to be reviewed will be sent to the candidate so that they can submit their review according to the criteria listed. The deadline for submitting reviews is October 29, 2023.

Candidates must ensure that they only use the link to write their review, and undertake not to share it with any third party.

 

SELECTION PROCESS

Three (03) texts will be declared finalists and the 1st text declared the winner of this edition following a two-stage process:

– a pre-selection phase based essentially on checking that entries comply with the conditions for participation

– a final selection phase conducted by a 3-member jury

 

THE COMPETITION JURY:

The jury is the final decision-making body for the competition. Its decision is final.

For this 4th edition, it is made up of three visual arts professionals and art critics chosen by the organizers.

 

SCHEDULE:

The various stages in the organization of the competition will be announced in the press.

For this edition, the following timetable is envisaged:

Call for entries: September 25 to

Application deadline: October 29, 2023

Deliberation: December 2, 2023

 

COMMITMENT OF THE ORGANIZERS:

– The three finalist texts will be published in the NO’O CULTURES magazine specializing in art criticism, on the noocultures.info platform, on other platforms and in partner magazines.

– The authors of the finalists’ texts may be invited to take part in partner festivals, subject to availability.

– The 2nd and 3rd finalists will be awarded certificates of excellence in their respective countries.

– The author of the winning text will receive his trophy on the occasion of an event dedicated to photography in particular and to the visual arts, to which he will be invited.

 

INCOMPATIBILITIES:

Members of the pre-selection committee, members of the jury, members of the organizing team, members of the Executive Secretariat of the CRITIQUES AFRICAINES network, members of partner structures and members of their respective families are not authorized to compete.

 

AWARDS CEREMONY:

The winner of the competition agrees to attend the official awards ceremony.

 

RESPONSIBILITY:

The Pan-African Art Criticism Competition is the responsibility of the Association Nord Ouest Cultures. The organizers cannot be held responsible if, for reasons of force majeure, the competition has to be modified, postponed or cancelled.

Information: award@critiquesafricaines.org or 00226 68 02 89 88

Complete the registration form