D.I.V.A.
DIVERSE INDIVIDUAL VISUAL ARTISTS
Electric Picnic Music & Arts Festival is delighted to announce our
new Artist in Residence programme - D.I.V.A
A Bursary of €10,000 will be offered to the successful artists
D.I.V.A. stands for Diverse Individual Visual Artists and aims to bring professional visual
artists together to collaborate with one another within Electric Picnic’s unique environment
and alongside the wider festival team. A bursary of €10,000 will be offered to the successful
artists to help create an amazing backdrop to your festival experience!
In many ways Electric Picnic Music & Arts Festival is one large-scale collaborative art project
- a transient work of immersive and experiential escapism. It attracts a wonderfully open
audience, who are eager to absorb the world that has been created for their enjoyment.
They are energetic, adventurous and curious people. They want to explore and experience,
and they expect to be challenged.
Electric Picnic is calling on artists to come together to create something magical for the
forthcoming festival. The weekend of 2nd, 3rd, 4th of September will see 55,000 people
descend on Stradbally, all eager to entertained and enthralled by the music and the sights.
This is a captive audience for you as an artist and you can apply as a group of artists who
would like to take an opportunity to work together or in tandem in this environment.
Alternatively you can apply as an individual artist, and should you be successful you will be
grouped with 2-3 other artists with whom you will collaborate.
The artists awarded the D.I.V.A. residency will work onsite over a two week period, during
the "build phase" of the festival. Works must be completed and installed by the 25th of
August. The process will involve dialogue with our co-curators to ensure that the artworks
created suit the festival environment, both visually and practically. For this reason, it should
be expected that the final artwork may deviate from the original concept. It should be a
fluid journey. We are about trying, learning, regrouping, reconsidering, and developing.
While the individual practices within your group can vary hugely - and we would encourage
this - we will want to see influences of each other’s work within the individual pieces
created, providing a strong visual sense of the collaboration of individuals that D.I.V.A. has
been conceived to represent.
Guess what! You do not need to develop a proposal in order to apply for the D.I.V.A.
programme. The most important evidence of your ability is your past work, so please make
sure and tell us all about it through lots of images.
TO APPLY, simply email the above to: [email protected]
The artists awarded the D.I.V.A. residency at Electric Picnic will be a part of the festival
community and of the fabric of the festival itself.
With very special thanks to trail blazers: Clare Hartigan, Gary Murphy, Martin Finnan, Maria
Finnan, Michelle Pando Kelly and Sharon Murphy - all of which are themselves wonderful
D.I.V.A.s.
Artist’s Statement by Clare Hartigan
DIVA was born in 2014, in a small gallery in Kilmallock, Co. Limerick. It was a reaction to the difficulty in finding
exhibition spaces and funding, that didn’t require lengthy academic plans and proposals. It was for artists who
had trained themselves to think in images rather than words and who worked emotionally rather than
logically. It is in essence a performance that grows and mutates, one that nobody can know the full outcome
of, not even the creators.
I am delighted, proud and pleased to announce that Electric Picnic have decided to include and fund DIVA in
their program.
DIVA is an art project based on the Munich's "Degenerative Art Exhibition" of 1937, the Entartete Kunst, and
Paris’ "Exhibition of Rejects", the Salon de Refuses, 1874. DIVA revels in our differences and seeks to think
outside the box in an organic environment. It introduces a new and exciting audiences to the possibilities of
visual art. It challenges the comfort zones and will force you to think on your feet.
If you get selected for the Artist in Residency program you and your team will in a sense become a silent band
and your stage is Electric Picnic with a guaranteed audience of 55,000. You need to be brave. It is exciting yet
contemplative, huge yet personal, temporary yet permanent, playful and yet deadly serious all at the same
time. This is a chance to show what you can do and to be a pure DIVA.
Editors notes:
What does the D.I.V.A. Artists in Residence programme offer:
• A total of €10,000 will be awarded to the winning group. Please note that this figure must
include the purchase of any materials needed to complete your works. We encourage the
use of reclaimed materials.
• Hostel style accommodation onsite will be offered to the awarded artists. If preferred, you
are welcome to make other arrangements at your own expense, however it is essential that
much of the work is completed onsite in collaboration with the festival team
• Profile on the festival website, social media platforms and festival programme
• An opportunity to collaborate with a small community of peers and with the festival team
• A chance to experiment with large scale works
• A unique canvas and exhibiting opportunity
• The festival community experience - the weeks leading up to the Electric Picnic festival are
a very enjoyable time as people from the widest variety of disciplines come together to
deliver this utterly diverse show. Passion for what we individually do, is what binds us
together. In essence, we are all Diverse Individuals coming together to create a transient
world that delivers in so many different ways for so many different people.
Assessment will be based upon the following:
• Review of images of previous works by applicant artists
• Review of artists biographies/CVs/backgrounds
• Suitability of artists medium to exhibiting within the festival environment, taking into
account such things as scale, durability in the outdoor arena, public safety, etc.
• Interest in collaborating with other artists and with the festival production team
• Openness to development of ideas beyond the scope or boundaries of the original
concept
• Suitability to working in the festival environment
• Names of artists applying to collaborate with one another
• Biographies/CVs/websites or other sources of information about the background of each
professional Artist proposing to collaborate together
• Images of previous work by each of the Artists and/or link to Instagram, Facebook, etc.,
showing previous work. (Visual representation of previous work will be the tool employed
most significantly in determining the group of artists to whom the award will be made).
Please note:
• The artworks will remain in the ownership of the Electric Picnic festival and may be
redisplayed in subsequent years
• As the works will be displayed out-of-doors, durability of materials will be important.
Damage to artwork is quite likely to occur, in spite of the best of intentions, so please be
aware of this and comfortable with this.
• You must direct and oversee the removal and storage of the pieces
• The moneys provided must include all material costs
• Lighting for select pieces will be provided by the festival
• The Electric Picnic festival as a gallery space is challenging in a number of respects. Size
matters. The size of the structures within the space mean that works must be large to be
impactful. "Good things come in small packages” doesn’t quite apply. The bottom line here
is, think BIG.
• Electric Picnic is a smorgasbord of ideas and colours. This is its strength in many ways, but
from a visual arts prospective this creates a complex and competing visual field. The key to
success here will be being open to working with the project curators.
Timeline for process:
• Application deadline: July 10th at 12 noon
• Announcement of awarded artists: July 17th
• Onsite dates: 7th-25th of August
• Installation: by the 25th of August
• De-installation of artworks: 5th/6th September
• Payment schedule - 35% upon receipt of invoice and approved Purchase Order, 35% two
weeks in advance of the festival and 30% one month post festival.