The Alice Yard Prize for Art Writing, inaugurated in 2014, is an annual award for an original piece of critical writing on contemporary Caribbean art by a Caribbean writer aged 35 or under.
Established by Alice Yard, the prize aims to encourage new writing on Caribbean art and artists, and to identify emerging voices in contemporary Caribbean art criticism.
The winner of the prize will receive a cash award of US$1,000 and publication in The Caribbean Review of Books. The inaugural prize will open for entries in May 2014, with a deadline of 14 July. The winner will be announced in September 2014 to commemorate Alice Yard’s eighth anniversary.
Download full eligibility and entry guidelines and the prize entry form here.
To be eligible to enter for the 2014 prize, a writer must be a citizen of the Caribbean, whether resident in the region or abroad, and be under the age of 35 on the entry deadline, 14 July, 2014.
Each participant may submit only one entry. Participants need not have a formal background in art history or criticism.
An entry should:
• Be an original piece of writing of no more than 3,000 words, which has not previously been published in print or online;
• Be written in English (or, if originally written in another language, translated into English by the author);
• Examine a work or a series of works by a contemporary Caribbean artist, resident in the region or abroad;
• Be aimed at an intelligent general audience as much as an academic or professional one.
A piece of writing entered for the prize does not have to be a conventional critical essay or review. The prize administrators are interested in writing that investigates different forms and genres, as long as it is driven by genuine critical engagement.
The prize will be decided by a panel of three judges, who will select a winner and two honorable mentions. The 2014 judges are:
Krista Thompson (Bahamas/US), chair
Art historian and curator
Associate professor of art history, Northwestern University
Charles Campbell (Jamaica/Canada)
Artist and curator
Chief curator, National Gallery of Jamaica
Courtney J. Martin (US)
Art historian and curator
Assistant professor of the history of art and architecture, Brown University
The Alice Yard Prize for Art Writing is conceived and established by the co-directors of Alice Yard, Sean Leonard, Christopher Cozier, and Nicholas Laughlin, who will administer the prize and support the panel of judges in their deliberations.
For any queries about eligibility requirements or the submission process, please contact the prize administrators at: [email protected]