General Idea Fellowship
The National Gallery of Canada’s General Idea Fellowship encourages and supports advanced research in contemporary art.
Research will relate to any aspect of contemporary art, including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, printmaking, artist’s books and multiples, video, installation and other media, and emphasize the use and investigation of the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, including the Art Metropole Collection, the General Idea fonds, the AA Bronson collection, and related materials in the Gallery’s collections.
Current
Fellow
Photo: Javier Alejandro Cerrada
Photo: Javier Alejandro Cerrada
Alper Turan
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About the Artist
Alper Turan (b. 1993, Ankara) is a curator and writer based in New York and Berlin. His curatorial practice draws upon queer strategies, abstractions, and embodied and libidinal knowledge, and his research concentrates on exhibition-related moments, exhibitions as intimate spaces, and exhibitionism.
Turan is an adjunct curator at Protocinema, and a PhD student at HFBK Hamburg (HFBK). He is also a 2023–24 curatorial fellow in the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.
Project Summary
Alper Turan’s General Idea Fellowship project involves a speculative dive into the Gallery’s collections to build an alternate, subjective genealogy and visual atlas of HIV/AIDS. Inspired by General Idea's Imagevirus and its viral tactics, and following the methods of Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas, he aims to reinterpret unrelated works of art, exploring connections to global HIV/AIDS narratives, queer movements, and activism. He will also trace the conditions that birthed the crisis, and the profound societal transformation that resulted.
Past
Fellows
About the Artist
Jacob Korczynski was the inaugural recipient of the General Idea Fellowship in 2022. His research centred around the Art Metropole Collection of artists’ books, editions, and multiples, examining Art Metropole’s early activities as a distributor of artists’ films and videos. In particular, he focused on a group of artists who are represented in the Art Metropole Collection, but whose film and video work was never distributed by the artist-run centre.
Korczynski is a curator and a PhD candidate at the Malmö Art Academy in Sweden whose curatorial practice encompasses exhibitions, screenings and publications. These include projects for the Stedelijk Museum, Cooper Cole, Western Front, and the Badischer Kunstverein and editing the publications I See/La Camera: I (If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution); Andrew James Paterson’s Collection/Correction (Kunstverein Toronto/Mousse Publishing); Jimmy Robert’s Revue (Leopold-Hoesch-Museum); and Nour Bishouty’s 1—130 Selected Works Ghassan Bishouty b. 1941 Safad, Palestine — d. 2004 Amman, Jordan (Art Metropole/Motto Books).
Currently a PhD candidate at the Malmö Art Academy in Sweden, his writing has been published by Afterall, BOMB, Camera Austria, and Flash Art.
In addition to being the inaugural recipient of the General Idea Fellowship, Korczynski was awarded a Curatorial Research Fellowship from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in 2020.
About the
Fellowship
The fellowship is open to art historians, curators, critics, conservators, graduate students and independent and other professionals working in the visual arts or in museology and related disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, and is open to international applicants.
Fellowships of the National Gallery of Canada are tenable only at the National Gallery of Canada. Each award is limited to a maximum of $15,000, including expenses and/or a stipend. The term of each award is one calendar year beginning May 31, 2023. Exceptionally this year, the Fellowship can be carried out from September 2023 to September 2024.
Completed applications will include all of the following:
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A statement of the aims, methodology and anticipated results of the investigation, limited to a maximum of three pages headed by a summary of the proposal;
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A brief outline of the research materials and facilities required (e.g., bibliography of primary and secondary resources; access to National Gallery of Canada collections; access to the expertise and resources of other Ottawa area institutions; etc.);
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The proposed dates and timetable of the residency at the Gallery;
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An outline of projected costs, including expenses and stipend. Eligible expenses include relocation to Ottawa, subsistence during the residency, and project-related travel, supplies and services;
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A full curriculum vitae, including education, professional employment history, awards and honours, publications, exhibitions and work-in-progress;
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Information on other grants applied for or received, employment commitments and paid sabbatical arrangements, for the proposed period of residency;
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One letter of recommendation, sent under separate cover by the referee to the Gallery. The letter must address the candidate's achievements in general and the fellowship proposal in particular;
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Examples of finished work, textual, visual, or both.
The review committee, comprised of National Gallery of Canada staff and external jurors, will examine research proposals with the following considerations in mind:
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The significance, originality, goals, potential contributions and feasibility of the proposal;
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The need for and the benefit to be derived from enhanced access to the collections of the Gallery and other Ottawa institutions, and, the relevance to the research community of the planned work. Priority will be given to projects that intend to reach a public audience physically, in print or digitally.
Applications are invited from all qualified candidates, including Indigenous peoples, women, people of any sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, racialized people, and people with disabilities.
The Gallery is committed to developing inclusive, barrier-free selection processes and work environment.
Enquiries about the GI Fellowship can be sent to [email protected].