Call for applications: Arts research grants for the Arab world

Grants are available to individual researchers ($15 000 max), teams of researchers or collectives ($25 000 max) and institutions ($35 000 max).

The programme seeks to promote and develop art research in the Arab region, a geographical and cultural space rich with art legacies and contemporary art practices waiting to be researched and analysed. It also seeks to empower the production of different kinds of academic and artistic knowledge that adds value to the field. 

Participants are encouraged to undertake critical research on different aspects of the arts using experimental approaches that seek to create new openings in understanding art and culture in the region. 

Ideal proposals are those that contribute critical knowledge that crosses disciplinary boundaries between arts, the social sciences and other disciplines.

Some of the areas that can be addressed include, but are not limited, to:

• Arts as part of everyday life.
• Historical and contemporary art practices.
• The temporality and spatiality of artistic practices and related knowledge production.
• History of art.
• Folk art.
• Arts and the environment.
• Research on archives related to the arts.
• Art and the state.
• Pop culture.
• Meaning and impact of art.
• Art in exile.
• Genres of artistic writing.
• Forms and functions of artistic works.
• Art/society relationships.
• Suppressed and marginalised art histories and practices.
• Artistic production, circulation, consumption and audience.

Who can apply?

This programme is open to researchers from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen with diverse backgrounds in the arts, humanities and social sciences, as well as allied fields. 

Arts and humanities disciplines include:

• Musicology, performance arts, art history, comparative literature, contemporary art, curatorial studies, fine arts, graphic design, architecture, languages and literature, folklore studies, media studies and visual arts. 

The core social science fields include disciplines such as:

• Anthropology, demography, economics, history, political science, psychology and sociology. 

Allied fields include:

• Education, gender studies, cultural studies and urban studies.

Note: Interdisciplinary proposals are encouraged.

Requirements

An applicant can be:

• A holder of a PhD degree in one of the disciplines or fields described above.
• An art practitioner with extensive practical experience.

View more guidelines here.