Prince Claus Seed Awards 2022

The Prince Claus Fund is excited to issue the 2022 open call for the Prince Claus Seed Awards.

The Prince Claus Fund annually recognizes 100 emerging artists and cultural practitioners within the first five years of their careers with Prince Claus Seed Awards. Through this, we aim to create space for emerging artists to experiment and develop new perspectives on societal challenges within their practice on their own terms. 

For the Prince Claus Seed Awards, we are looking for emerging artists and cultural practitioners whose innovative work addresses pressing social and/or political issues within their own context.  Recipients are free to invest the Award of €5.000 in the development of their artistic practice. Through the Prince Claus Seed Awards we support the career development, creativity and experimentation of emerging artists and cultural practitioners around the globe.

The Prince Claus Fund offers 100 Awards to emerging artists and cultural practitioners, who each receive €5.000 to develop their cultural practice.

The Prince Claus Seed Awards are aimed at emerging artists and cultural practitioners who:

• Are on average in the initial 1 to 5 years of their professional career (study years not included);
• Have an innovative and interesting artistic practice that addresses pressing social/political issues important within their local context;
• Have received little to no recognition/support for their artistic/cultural practices, and are not yet recognised internationally.

We especially encourage individuals with experimental artistic practices that: 

• Represent minority groups and marginalized communities within society;
• Create safe spaces for young artists, makers and participants;
• Generate participation and empower local communities to express themselves freely;
• Propose new narratives and futures on histories, particularly those censored or marginalised for political, religious, cultural, or economic reasons;
• Enable exchange, cooperation and knowledge sharing related to the current global environmental crisis;
• Creatively and confidently challenge gender norms.

With this open call for the Prince Claus Seed Awards we would like to invite emerging artists and cultural practitioners who live and work in our eligible countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe to apply for this award. Applicants are required to fill in an online application form, submit samples of their work, one reference letter and a pitch answering the question: ‘what drives you as an artist?’.

The deadline for the submission is March 1, 2022 at 23:59h Amsterdam Time. 

Within the ASEM region, the eligible countries (where applicant artists must live and work) are: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines, Viet Nam, China, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand. See here for full list of eligible OECD DAC listed countries.

Image © Souleymane Kone, Ciel K