2023 Juried Performance Program 

Southern Exposure is excited to invite Bay Area artists to submit new work for our Annual Entry-Fee-Free Juried Program, this year focused on performance-based work! Curated by Alison Burstein, Curator, The Kitchen and Rachel Vera Steinberg, Curator & Director of Exhibitions, Smack Mellon, this marks the 32nd call for work by Bay Area artists for our Annual Entry-Fee-Free Juried Program. 

The call for submissions is open to artists who live in San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Napa, Marin, or Sonoma Counties. Work selected for this program will exemplify Southern Exposure’s mission and our commitment to supporting new, innovative, risk-taking contemporary visual art practices.

Deadline to apply is Monday, September 18, 2023 11:59 PM. Artists whose work has been accepted will be notified via email by Wednesday, November 1, 2023. On November 18, 2023, performances by 10-15 artists will be presented back-to-back, with very limited time in between to set up. Each performer will have approximately 5-15 minutes. 
 

SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN

Entry Fee:
Absolutely none! Never! Nope!

Compensation:
Artists selected for the program will receive a $200 stipend for their participation.

Submission Deadline:
Monday, September 18, 2023, 11:59 PM

The event:

On November 18, 2023, performances by 10-15 artists will be presented back-to-back, with very limited time in between to set up. Each performer will have approximately 5-15 minutes. 

Who is eligible:

Open to artists who are currently living in San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Solano, Napa, Marin, and Sonoma Counties. Artists may work in collaboration with artists from outside the Bay Area.
 

What work will be considered:

• Performance-based live work of any kind: drag, theater, music, spoken text, dance, sound, movement, monologue, magic animal tricks, etc!
• Work must be ready to be presented at Southern Exposure on November 18, 2023. 
• Each artist is permitted one submission which may include up to five pieces for consideration. 
• Work selected for this exhibition will exemplify Southern Exposure’s mission and our commitment to supporting new, innovative, risk-taking contemporary art practices.
• Southern Exposure has two video projectors, two handheld microphones with stands, a PA system with a very old 12-channel mixer, an Apple computer, and a few cables. Any other gear that a project requires should be provided by the artist. 

Jurying and Notification:

Artists whose work has been accepted for the program will be notified by email by November 1, 2023.

ABOUT THE JURORS:

Alison Burstein (she/her) is a Curator at The Kitchen, a center for experimental art in New York City founded in 1971. At The Kitchen, Alison organizes exhibitions, performances, artist residencies, archival research initiatives, and digital programming and publications. She previously served as Program Director at the nonprofit art space Recess and as a member of the education departments at MoMA, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum. She has organized exhibitions and programs at institutions including Tenthaus (Oslo), The Luminary (St. Louis), Knockdown Center (Queens), Museum of Jurassic Technology (Los Angeles), and NURTUREart (Brooklyn). Her writing has appeared in artist monographs and publications including Tate Etc. She holds a MA in Art History from Columbia University and BA from Wesleyan University. 

Rachel Vera Steinberg is the Curator & Director of Exhibitions at Smack Mellon. Her work focuses on science fiction as well as political, historical, and cultural distinctions between facts and fictions. She is committed to the presentation of time-based media and examining the roles of alternative art spaces and artistic agency. Her research on science fiction as an exhibition-making modality culminated in the group exhibition A faint hum at the Hessel Museum at Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies, where she completed her master’s degree. She was the 2019-2020 fellow at the Curatorial & Research Residency Program at the Julia Stoschek Collection in Düsseldorf, Germany, where she curated the exhibition JSC ON VIEW: MYTHOLOGISTS (2021). She was the Director of SOHO20 Artists Inc from 2015-2018 and the Assistant Director of NURTUREart Non-Profit Inc from 2010-2015 where she founded exhibition and event-based programs promoting time-based media and gender equity. She is the co-founder of Custom Program (2017-2019), a micro-gallery in Brooklyn focusing on humor, irreverence, and site-specificity. As an independent curator, she has curated exhibitions locally and internationally and spoken at universities throughout the United States.