An Indian Summer Open 2020 – Call-out for artists

An Indian Summer, the UK festival celebrating South Asian culture, has opened submissions for its inaugural open art exhibition, An Indian Summer (AIS) Open, launched to mark the 10th edition of the festival since AIS first began in 2011.

Artists are invited to submit work exploring the theme of ‘Now We Are Free?’ and what it means to be free in today’s world. The exhibition will be curated by artist Ashokkumar Mistry with a panel of experts and festival stakeholders to choose four finalists and then a winner, who will be given a £500 cash prize. The three runner ups will be awarded a £200 cash prize each.

Inspired by the anniversaries of South Asian independence in recent years, the exhibition aims to explore what freedom feels like, tastes like and means once it has been attained. How does one express a freedom that is craved for so long? As the Covid-19 crisis forces us into isolation and takes away many freedoms globally, does this force us to understand and appreciate freedom differently?

An Indian Summer usually takes place across venues and public spaces in Leicester, but due to COVID-19 it has been repackaged and reimagined for online audiences – entirely hosted online. In the absence of a physical exhibition, 15 UK and global artists working in a range of artforms including but not limited to fine art, print, sculpture, painting, photography and film, will be selected to exhibit their work via an online gallery and AIS Open social media channels.

The deadline for submissions is 30th June 2020, the full brief and how to submit work will be live on our website 3 June.