Center for Art & Advocacy

Beginning November through December 10, 2023, the Center for Art & Advocacy and its fellowship program, Right of Return, will be accepting applications for the 2024 Right of Return Fellowship. In addition, Right of Return is excited to partner with Frieze and Endeavor Impact to present the Frieze Los Angeles 2024 Impact Prize recognizing a visual artist who contributes their talents towards issues of social justice and mass incarceration.

How this year's application process works: 

The Right of Return Fellowship is open to formerly incarcerated creatives from every discipline. Applicants should follow the questions and answer the prompts. Following the application process, six new 2024 Right of Return Fellows will be selected by Frieze and a panel of external reviewers and awarded $20,000 fellowships. 

The Frieze Impact Prize will be awarded to a visual artist or experimental filmmaker who is either a Right of Return alumnus, or one of the six new 2024 fellows.

One artist will be selected to receive the Frieze Impact Prize of $25,000 and the opportunity to showcase their work at Frieze Los Angeles, taking place February 29, 2024 to March 3, 2024 at the Santa Monica Airport.

Only one application needs to be completed to be considered for both the Right of Return Fellowship and the Frieze Impact Prize. Creatives working in disciplines other than the visual arts and experimental film, including poets, documentary filmmakers, performance artists, creative writers, and designers, are eligible for the Right of Return Fellowship, but not the Frieze Impact Prize.

For Visual Artists’ and Experimental Filmmakers’ consideration only: The two main differences between the Right of Return Fellowship and the Frieze Impact Prize’s application process and selection are: A Right of Return Fellowship is primarily awarded based on the merit of an applicant’s past work and the strength of their proposed future project idea. Right of Return Fellows are expected to create a new project or body of work within a 12 month period ending Dec 1, 2024. The Frieze Impact Prize is awarded based on the merit of an applicant's existing work, or works that are in progress but can be completed before February 1st, 2024.

ABOUT RIGHT OF RETURN USA FELLOWSHIP

A fellowship for formerly incarcerated artists

“Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice.” - Paul Robeson

The Center for Art & Advocacy’s Right of Return Fellowship invites formerly incarcerated artists to propose art projects aimed at transforming our criminal legal and immigration systems and reducing their scale and reach. The fellowship is open to artists working in all creative disciplines, including but not limited to visual, performance, poetry, media, and design.

Artists have always played a critical role in social movements as culture-makers and catalysts for change. The work to end mass incarceration and criminalization is no exception. Right of Return Fellows exist and work at the forefront of social movements and have the unique power to translate complex and nuanced ideas into powerful experiences, helping audiences move toward action. In a world saturated with new challenges and rapidly growing divisions, our fellows are also organizers and advocates who connect people and communities to collectively reimagine the world we want to live in.

The goal of the Right of Return Fellowship is to support the creation of new bodies of work that uplift the voices of people directly impacted by the criminal justice system, reflect the humanity of criminalized and incarcerated people, and build public will for ambitious and visionary change. 

ARTIST RETREAT

If selected, Right of Return Fellows will be asked to commit to participating in a group retreat in spring 2024 and be invited to a multi-cohort retreat in fall 2024. The Right of Return retreats are meant to foster community, develop political advocacy skills, and support practice sustainability. If COVID-19 makes in-person convenings impossible, abbreviated versions of the retreat will be held online.

APPLICANT ELIGIBILITY

The Right of Return Fellowship seeks to support formerly incarcerated artists with a demonstrated capacity to advance social change and a clear vision for utilizing their creative practice to end mass incarceration.

More specifically:

• We define the word “artist” in broad terms to include designers, musicians, visual artists, performers, photographers, spoken-word artists, poets, and storytellers. 
• Artists must collaborate with an advocacy organization during the development and/or execution of their proposed project (collaborating organizations do not need to be secured at the time of application). 
• Artists may be at any stage of their career.
• Projects and applicants must be U.S. based.
• The Center for Art & Advocacy seeks a diverse cohort of fellows with regard to race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and experience.

WHO SHOULD APPLY?

U.S.-based formerly incarcerated artists of all creative disciplines, age 18 or older. We do not fund organizations or non-profits, only individual artists.

*Only visual artists and experimental filmmakers will be eligible for the Frieze Los Angeles 2024 Impact Prize

GRANT TIMELINE AND REQUIREMENTS

Funded Right of Return projects must be completed within 12 months of the award date. Selected Fellows will be asked to provide a proposed overall budget for the project.

FELLOWSHIP GRANT

$20,000 total: $10,000 artist award, $10,000 for project materials and production.

APPLICATION DEADLINE

December 10, 2023 at 11:59 PM EST

The Center for Art & Advocacy and Frieze Los Angeles will not grant extensions or accept late submissions

AWARD NOTIFICATION

Right of Return Fellows will be notified mid-Dec 2023

SELECTION PROCESS

Applicants will be reviewed by a panel of external curators, artists and other experts in the field. The reviewers will represent diverse geographies, artistic practices, backgrounds, and fields of expertise.

Submitted proposals will be considered in their entirety. The final selections for both the Right of Return Fellowship and the Frieze Impact Prize will be determined by Frieze Los Angeles in conjunction with the Center and the external review committee.  For the purposes of confidentiality we will not offer specific feedback discussed during the selection process.

CRITERIA FOR SELECTION

Finalists will be considered based on the following criteria:

• Merit of artist’s past work and strength of proposed project
• Likelihood that the proposed project will meaningfully contribute to criminal justice reform efforts and reach its intended audience
• Clarity of vision for a truly collaborative effort with partner organization or advocate(s) (artists will not be penalized for not having secured a collaborator at the time of application)
• Likelihood that the proposed work will be completed within the timeframe and budget allotted
• Diversity of perspective and experience. 

We look forward to reviewing your application for a Right of Return Fellowship.

CONTACT & ASSISTANCE

For help completing this form, read our FAQ page. 

For any questions, please contact outreach@thecenter.art

ABOUT FRIEZE LOS ANGELES 2024 IMPACT PRIZE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH RIGHT OF RETURN 

This year, the Center for Art & Advocacy has partnered with Frieze and Endeavor Impact to present the Frieze Los Angeles 2024 Impact Prize in partnership with Right of Return, to award $25,000 to a visual artist in a past or current cohort of the Right of Return Fellowship, platforming their practice’s contributions towards ending mass incarceration. Furthering the mission of both The Center and Frieze, this partnership intends to leverage art as a powerful tool to expose the inequities within our criminal justice system.

The Center will be the third partner for the Frieze Impact Award since it was established in 2020. The prize draws inspiration from Mark Bradford’s Life Size (2019), a work created on the occasion of the inaugural Frieze Los Angeles in 2019, which exposed the inequitable aspects of the criminal justice system.

Each Right of Return visual artist applicant will submit a body of work they would like the jury to consider. This body of work, along with additional application materials submitted through this form, will comprise the basis of the jury’s consideration of each applicant.

Applications to the Frieze Los Angeles 2024 Impact Prize are open to any U.S.-based, formerly incarcerated visual artist who is aged 18 or older, regardless of citizenship status, felony convictions, or formal training in art. 

FRIEZE LOS ANGELES 2024 IMPACT PRIZE

The Impact Prize comprises a $25,000 award, as well as shipping and installation costs for the exhibition of artwork at Frieze Los Angeles 2024. 

AWARD NOTIFICATION

The Frieze Impact Prize winner will be notified via email in mid-December. Applicants may be contacted during the review process by a Frieze representative if additional information about their work is necessary for consideration.

SELECTION PROCESS

Applicants will be reviewed by a panel of external curators, artists and other experts in the field. The reviewers will represent diverse geographies, artistic practices, backgrounds, and fields of expertise.

Submitted proposals will be considered in their entirety. The final selections for both the Right of Return Fellowship and the Frieze Impact Prize will be determined by Frieze in conjunction with the Center and the external review committee. For the purposes of confidentiality, we will not offer specific feedback discussed during the selection process.

CONTACT & ASSISTANCE

For help completing this form, please read our FAQ page. 

For any questions, please contact projects@frieze.com