CALL FOR ARTISTS! Join Us for a new group exhibition!
Submit your details by JUNE 5th below!
WORLD ROULETTE
An Exhibition About Worldbuilding at Random
Opens August 14, 2020
You sprint wide-eyed across the dark sandy dunes. You don’t look back.
The rough cloth bag you carry is still clutched tight to your chest. There is no way to hide your footsteps out here… you will be caught, you know it… it’s just a matter of when. You’re running a race that can only be won by stamina and tenacity.
”Go… go…. go…” You breathe through your teeth on every exhale.
In a world of thieves, you believe that the only way to survive is to be sharp and quick — you’ve been playing this game of social poker since you could speak and you’ve grown up knowing that trust is a rare commodity. Everyone here is hiding, or hiding something. Today you are doing both. With so few resources, each item is a prize to be won and each morsel of food is a difference between life and death. Find it, consume it, discard it, find something else. The cycle continues.
You reach the dry, dark wooden ruins of an old settlement and slip inside a nearby structure. The windows have long since been broken by the blowing sands and the ceilings feel low from the tall drifts of windswept sand that are swallowing the buildings with each storm. The moon barely reaches inside these structures so you should have a moment to rest where no one can see you. You slip around the corner quietly and crouch down and hurriedly inspect the contents of your bag— the sound of your heart beating in your ears.
From the far corner of this darkened room, you hear something… stir?
“Well, what do we have here?”
•••
Imagination is a beautiful thing. So let’s imagine infinite worlds together. We’ve all seen media where someone gets ahold of a time machine, stumbles into a portal, or steps into an alternate reality generator and the main character is tossed into a space unlike anything they’re used to. Rick and Morty, yes. Bill and Ted, exactly. Futurama… Start Trek… you see where we’re going. We are looking for individuals that are up for the challenge of answering the question… what would it look like if we were tossed into a world based on these four categories of great importance:
Ecosystem (ex. Temperate Rainforest, Tundra, Coral Reef, Low Oxygen Atmosphere, Underground Cave System, Glacial)
Resources or Elements of Importance (ex. Lapis Lazuli, Charcoal, Cork, Fishing, Fossils, Ancient Ruins, Hunting, Quarries, Geothermal Heat)
Important Attitudes or Attributes of the People (ex. Warring Families, Spiritual, Elders as Leaders, Musical Tendencies, Strong Constitution, Body Modification, Lack of Sanitation)
Time Period (1300s, 1890s, 2500…)
HOW IT WILL WORK:
After June 5th, participating artists will have access to a web page where, when you click on the link, it randomizes unique prompts from these four categories above (the examples above are to help give you an idea of the diversity of the types of things that can pop up, but there will be many, many more) and provides you with a scaffolding on which you can create the most terrifying, futuristic, incredible, insane worlds imaginable.
You get three “rolls” of the dice and will have to choose your favorite combination, then draw away!
THE EXHIBITION:
Each artist can create one black-and-white “piece of work” for this exhibition. This can be a full illustration of a space or place, a collection of little vignettes of life in your world, a page of trinkets, collections of items, costumes or other drawings. Anything that pertains to your world is fair game! In addition to your piece of work, we will be asking each artist to submit a little blurb about their world, including a name and paragraph providing some context that can be shown alongside the artwork.
While we traditionally show at our brick-and-mortar gallery in Minneapolis, we are still navigating how to best showcase the work in person — so in the meantime, we will be launching a virtual exhibition within our online gallery, which will go live on August 14th, 2020! In addition, we’ll be providing more details as we get closer about the rules and best-practices for seeing the show in person.
If you’ve never participated in a show with us before, it’s easy! You do not have to create the work until you’re selected to be a part of the exhibition, so as soon as the call for art is over, we’ll be jurying the group and then sending out a welcome email to all involved. All artists are welcome to create one piece of work based on the show theme, and can price their work as they see fit! We have a 60%/40% commission in favor of the artists and will be offering print-on-demand sales via the online shop. This show, just like all of our exhibitions, is open to international folks, as well as local artists! All of the details will be sent out in a log-in page for your convenience as soon as the jurying is complete!
The full collection of works will be on display online and sold through our online shop for the duration of the exhibition!
THE ZINE:
We are also going to be printing a limited edition zine of the exhibition / project for those that would like to opt-in to have their work included! Proceeds of the zine will go toward the gallery so we can continue to create awesome projects for the creative community during this crazy time.
For those of you that are new to the gallery, Light Grey Art Lab has been a community arts organization in the Twin Cities for 8 years and we’ve hosted all sorts of fun exhibitions, projects, and workshops for people to get involved in. The pandemic has hit us particularly hard, as we’re unable to host public events and are unable to travel at the moment due to health and safety concerns. That means we will be continuing to try to create projects to help us keep the lights on while we navigate our new normal (particularly for the rest of 2020 until things get a little less scary) and will be turning to online and printed projects to help keep making a difference in the community! A button to opt-in to have your artwork included in the zine will be on the artist information form to all participating artists. Thanks in advance for your support!
We will be launching a presale for anyone interested in purchasing a copy and participating artists will have the option of purchasing the zine at cost.
***
IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN JOINING US FOR THIS SHOW, SEE BELOW!
All you have to do is put your name, email, and a link to your work online in the comments below!
EXAMPLE:
Lindsay Nohl
Hello@lightgreyartlab.com
instagram.com/paperbicycle
We will be jurying the artist list after JUNE 5th and will be sending an email to all creatives at that date with more information on how to send the work!
Thanks again and looking forward to exhibiting with you!
Questions? Send us a note! hello@lightgreyartlab.com