About Open Call
Creative Time’s Emerging Artist Open Call is a biennial initiative that invites artists to propose compelling, cutting-edge projects that address a timely social justice issue. In surveying the field, it became clear that often, the same artists were being afforded major commissions. This initiative is one way to complicate that narrative and work to cultivate and support the next great generation of socially engaged artists working in public space.
The Last Stand is the winner of Creative Time’s 2021 Emerging Artist Open Call, which offers the opportunity for an artist to create their first-ever public artwork. The most innovative and impactful ideas so often come from artists who have not yet worked in the public realm, and the Open Call aims to fill a big void by providing Creative Time’s platform, funding, and expertise to help bring new voices and artistic visions to light. We are most interested in ideas that push the boundaries of public art, speak to pressing social issues, and engender public dialogue and debate.
Kamala Sankaram embodies the mission of our Open Call with this boundary-pushing project. She is radically shifting her process beyond traditional performance venues and has proposed a grand experiment to create a project for an audience of trees. With her project, Sankaram also calls attention to climate change and environmental degradation, breaking down barriers between experimental music, art, and science.
