Shape Open 2018

Submissions are now open for the 2018 Shape Open, to be held in London during March and April 2018.

Currently in its sixth year, the Open is Shape's annual exhibition of artwork by disabled and non-disabled artists created in response to a disability-centred theme. The Open provides a space where disabled and non-disabled artists can discuss views and ideas about issues and topics which are often sidelined within artistic debate.

This year’s theme is “Collective Influence”: what influences you? How does influence go further than inspiration? Influence has the power to provoke change, it has the capacity to affect society. “Collective Influence” is an exhibition which will examine the interwoven influences of art, disability and the power of a collective voice. Questioning how the “collective” has the power to evoke change in contrast to individual influence, viral influence, or positive and negative influences, this exhibition is an examination of the role art plays in influencing social change.

Works submitted to the exhibition should respond, abstractly or literally, to ideas on the theme, and contribute to the discourse on what disability is and could be. Artists are invited to submit work in 2D, 3D, video or audio form. Artists exhibitors will be selected by a panel of arts industry judges, including Shape Open patron Yinka Shonibare MBE.

Deadline: Noon, Monday 16 October 2017

More information on the opportunity can be found here.