Call to Artists - Bogue Chitto State Park Kids Trail

Bogue Chitto State Park, located in Franklinton, Louisiana, is developing a Kids Trail featuring environmental education and recreation experiences. The trail will include a pollinator attracting sensory garden, an animal Olympics, a swinging bridge, and a hardwood creative play area, each centered around native animal species including butterflies, foxes, squirrels, bats, turtles, black bears, moles, herons, snakes, and alligators.

One or more artists or artist teams may be selected to design and implement approximately six (6) exterior, site-specific sculptures or installations of original design. Existing artwork will also be reviewed for consideration. Artists may specify in their artist's statement whether they wish to be considered for site-specific work, have existing artwork available for consideration, or both. The project budget is $122,000, inclusive of all costs including research, materials, fabrication, transportation, installation, and documentation.

Eligibility: Professional artists 18 and over, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender identification, military status, sexual orientation, marital status, or physical ability. Submissions must include a chronological resume demonstrating a minimum of five (5) years of professional visual art experience, a letter of interest and artist statement, three professional references, and six (6) images of original completed commissions (JPG or PNG, maximum 5MB per image). Submissions are evaluated on artistic excellence and originality, appropriateness to project goals, experience with similar scale projects, ability to create site-specific works, and availability to participate in design and implementation. Special consideration will be given to Louisiana artists. Notifications will be issued no later than February 2020. Finalists will be invited to attend two mandatory meetings: a site visit and a proposal presentation. An honorarium/proposal fee of up to $1,500 will be paid to finalists.