Jurying Process
How we choose projects to include in our Programming:
The Gallery employs a democratic jury process in the selection of its General Programming, Solidarity Grant Recipients, and other call-outs. In the effort to be democratic and transparent, here are the guidelines for the jury process:
The Jury mutually agrees upon the projects that represent the most diverse and strongest applicants of all identities and from all levels of experience within the Undergraduate Fine Arts Student Body at Concordia University and will ensure visibility for all students. The VAV Gallery strives to remove unnecessary barriers like “required experience”, and is committed to asking about and valuing multiple forms of experience, skills/knowledge and interest. The Jury will take in consideration the areas of interest of the applicant, as well as their potential and motivation to learn. The VAV is, in part, an environment for learning, and seeks to give students access to an otherwise exclusive opportunity.
Who makes up our Jury:
Each Jury consists of (2) coordinators, one to two (1-2) Board Members, and two to three (2-3) Voting Members of the VAV Gallery (Fine Arts Students). Voting Members will apply to participate in a general programming jury via a parallel submission procedure appended to the regular call-out. Jurors will be chosen through a blind selection process. Board Members may nominate themselves to be on the upcoming jury during Board Meetings. All Board and Voting Members are allowed to submit work for exhibition but are not allowed to sit on the Jury should they submit. The Jury will review each submission and engage in open, unprejudiced discussion about the proposed works without giving special treatment to any student.
How applications are judged:
Jurors will be provided access to review artist applications at least five (5) days prior to the jury meeting to allow for attentive evaluation. A score system is used by each juror to rate submissions in order from strongest to weakest. The Jury will evaluate applications on the following criteria, for a total of 20 points:
Artistic merit (5 points): This category will reflect the Juror’s individual opinion of the work and the overall application based on their subjective perceptions of its artistic merits.
Feasibility (5 points): This category will consider how feasible it would be to exhibit the work given the gallery’s equipment and technical restrictions. If the application is a project proposal, this category will also consider the feasibility of the schedule and budget.
Clarity (5 points): This category will consider the clarity and coherence of each submission, as well as its adherence to submission guidelines, by carefully evaluating project statements and documentation.
Affinity (5 points): This category will consider the submissions overall success and howit ali gns with the mandate and anti-oppression values of the VAV gallery.
How we approach a conflict of interest:
The VAV Gallery defines conflict of interest as a situation in which personal interest could comprise the Juror’s judgement. People can easily become biased and have an unfair preference or averseness due to things such as family, friendships, social factors, and negative relationships. To ensure a fair and just selection process, if a Juror is in a position to derive personal benefit from an applicant being selected or not, they must admit their conflict of interest.
All conflicts of interest must be disclosed before the jury meets. In the event of a conflict of interest between a juror and an individual’s application, the juror will acknowledge this conflict with VAV Gallery team only, prior to the meeting, so as not to affect the remaining jurors adjudicating that application. The juror will sit out on the grading of that particular application, however that juror abstaining from scoring will not negatively affect the final score of the applicant, as scores are averaged.
Specific guidelines for General Programming:
The coordinators are authorized to reject artist submissions during jury processes or to remove/prohibit an accepted artist's work if it is in violation of the anti-oppression statement. The coordinators will make their best efforts to respect the consensus of the jury, but will retain the final say in terms of the selection, organization, and scheduling of programming.
Juries are held at least two weeks before the start of the semester’s programming. The jury arranges individual artwork submissions into shows that typically consist of an average of five to ten (5 - 10) artists per two-three (2-3) week exhibition. The jury will determine which and how many project proposals to include in any given semester's programming. The organization of the Jury will be led by the Programming Coordinator with the support of their fellow coordinators.
The Jury may offer constructive comments and feedback to applicants when requested.
We invite feedback from the community and would be happy to offer clarification as to any of the points listed above. vav.board@gmail.com