2022–2024 Vera List Center Fellowships

The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School is pleased to invite applications for the 2022–2024 Vera List Center Fellowships. Five two-year, non-residential fellowships will be awarded to commission and support scholarly and creative work that critically engages with the Vera List Center’s 2022–2024 Focus Theme: Correction*. 

Application Deadline Sunday, March 13, 2022, 11:59 pm EST

Vera List Center Fellowships

Vera List Center Fellowships support the development and presentation of ambitious art and research projects by national and international emerging artists, writers, scholars, and activists. Since 1994, the VLC Fellowship program has supported outstanding individuals at key moments in early- and mid-career, especially those who are members of underrepresented communities in the art world and those who would otherwise struggle to find support because of the experimental, political, and/or research-intensive nature of their practice. The appointments provide the VLC Fellows with the opportunity to draw from the curatorial, academic, and professional resources of the Vera List Center and The New School. As commissions, the resulting fellowship projects will be presented to the public through the Vera List Center’s interdisciplinary public programs and institutional networks.

The Vera List Center is a public forum and university-based research center that focuses exclusively on advancing public scholarship on contemporary issues at the intersection of art and politics. Through their projects, the VLC Fellows contribute to the intellectual foundation of the Center and benefit from the engagement of New School faculty and students. For the 2022–2024 cycle, in our multidisciplinary curatorial programs, we look to “correction” as an opportunity to revise existing histories, systems, and modes, but also to challenge our position and relationship to correcting. We’re interested in projects that creatively and rigorously approach the 2022–2024 Focus Theme: Correction* in content and form, and make an intellectual and artistic contribution that advances the understanding of the act of correction. To learn more about Correction*, please see below for a full description or visit our website. 

The Vera List Center will appoint five VLC Fellows for the 2022–2024 cycle, including a Boris Lurie Fellow, reserved for an artist living outside the US with special consideration given to those who have faced political hardship, and two Borderlands Fellows. Learn more about Boris Lurie, his legacy, and this fellowship initiative here. Applications to the Borderlands Fellowship, a joint appointment with the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, are by invitation only.

Fellowship Benefits

The Vera List Center Fellowship is part-time and non-residential and extends over two years. The fellowship carries a US$15,000 research stipend as well as extensive curatorial and professional development services to support the fellowship project from conception to production and presentation. Each fellowship is highly individualized, depending on the research, project feasibility, and its intended outcomes. A separate, limited travel, production, and presentation budget is made available in discussion with and at the discretion of the VLC. Past VLC Fellowships have manifested in public in various forms, ranging from discursive events, exhibitions, and publications to socially engaged work. Depending on a fellow’s experience, speaking in New School classes may be possible. Successful fellowship proposals demonstrate a rigorous and open-ended individual inquiry, engagement in collaborative research, and exchange with other VLC Fellows, VLC staff, and The New School community.  

Fellows are not required to spend two years in New York. Covid-permitting, non-New York City residents are provided with an additional travel allowance to undertake intermittent short-term residencies in New York, to engage with the VLC’s team and the VLC Fellowship cohort, to speak in New School classes, and to take full advantage of the fellowship benefits. Fellows are supported for two years by the VLC’s curatorial and operational team as well as a graduate student research assistant. They are also paired with a VLC Board companion. They have access to a wide range of activities throughout The New School and enjoy extensive library privileges. Meetings and informal gatherings with New School faculty and students, past VLC Fellows, and other constituencies are organized regularly and offer opportunities for professional development as well as social exchanges. 

Requirements and Eligibility

Journalists, scholars, activists, visual and performing artists, critics, public intellectuals, curators, and cultural practitioners working in any field where they engage art and politics are encouraged to apply. 

Visit https://veralistcenter.org/announcement/open-call-2022-2024-vera-list-center-fellowships/ for more information.