The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) and the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS) are pleased to announce the launch of a new joint grants program entitled Research on the Arts Program (RAP) starting in spring 2018.
The new program is inspired by discussions and a meeting of interests between AFAC and ACSS. For AFAC, a study of its past ten years highlighted research as a priority area for the coming years. For ACSS, having built a solid reputation since 2012 as a premier social science organization in the region, its new five-year Strategy includes an expansion of its work into the Humanities and the Arts.
“Anecdotes about art practices are abundant,” says Rima Mismar, Executive Director of AFAC. “However, there is little research and comparative analysis that over time allows for a thorough reading of changes and trends in the arts and their link to the wider cultural, social, political and economic contexts in which artists and cultural institutions operate across the Arab region. We are convinced that by supporting those researching and analyzing the region through an arts lens, our collective understanding of the region will be enriched and broadened.”
For Seteney Shami, Director-General of the ACSS, what distinguishes research on the arts from the making of art is a matter of process and form. “Researchers put their work in conversation with other artists, theories, and practitioners in the field of research, including curators, archivists, historians, anthropologists, ethnographers, and sociologists,” she explains. “Research engages in critical investigations into and between art, practitioners and the world at large. The modes of enquiry and process of documentation becomes an arena for critical interrogation and reflection into the ways that aesthetics and artistic practices engage with, and thus reshape, the world.”
RAP is a funding opportunity that aims to support research on all art practices across disciplinary boundaries and methodological approaches on key themes of concern to, and in, the Arab region. The program aims at canvassing a broad range of research proposals, including comparative research that looks at more than one country or location regionally or globally. Interdisciplinary proposals that link the arts, humanities and social sciences are particularly welcome. Researchers from all backgrounds are encouraged to apply.
The program is co-funded by AFAC and the ACSS, for which the ACSS gratefully acknowledges a grant provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
RAP grants will be available to individual researchers (up to USD 15,000), research teams or collectives (up to USD 25,000) and institutions (up to USD 35,000).
For further questions and inquiries, contact the grants management team.
***********************************************************
About the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC)
The Arab Fund for Arts and Culture (AFAC) is an independent regional initiative that offers financial and professional support to emerging and established artists from the Arab region and to cultural institutions engaged in supporting the contemporary Arab art and culture scene. Founded in 2007, AFAC opens annual calls for Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Film, Music, Creative and Critical Writings, Research, Documentary Photography, and Training and Regional Events and supports around 150 individuals and organizations each year. AFAC encourages sustainability in the arts and culture sector through public and private investments, and through entrepreneurial business practices. To date, AFAC has supported more than 1,200 artistic and cultural projects.