Have an idea for a project or community event you think would be a good fit at Roman Susan? Tell us who you are, what you do, and the experience you want to share at our space! Send a detailed outline in any format of your choice to proposals@romansusan.org.
Proposal review sessions occur following annual deadlines on June 10 and December 10. All proposals are considered for the next calendar year. Please see below for further proposal guidelines. Following the submission deadlines, all proposals are reviewed by community volunteers, and then selected by popular consensus among Roman Susan directors. Notification of the proposal status generally occurs within 50 days of the review deadlines. If you would be interested in volunteering to review incoming artist proposals in the future, please sign up at Proposal Review Volunteers.
In addition to full project proposals, Roman Susan currently has the following calls for artist participation: Annotations & Inserts in public library spaces; streetview installations of Moving Image; ongoing Mapping of the cultural spaces in the North Lakeside neighborhoods; and our AUX partners hold an open call for Performance Response. You may also be interested in our list of other Chicagoland art spaces that accept artist proposals.
Roman Susan favors proposals which:
Share new work;
Engage our neighborhood;
Reflect communities in our immediate vicinity;
Showcase Chicago and Great Lakes artists;
Transform our space;
Promote open curatorial practices; and
Compliment our current trajectory.
Scheduling (rough estimates):
Exhibitions: 10 days setup + 30 days exhibition + 3 days deconstruct = 6 weeks
Short-run projects: 1-10 days setup + 1-2 event days + 2 days deconstruct = 2 weeks
One-nighters: 1-5 days setup + 1 event day + 1 day deconstruct =1 week
Project Honorariums:
Selected proposals receive honorariums, scaled to the duration of the project. Currently, for 2024:
Exhibitions = $1,250
Short-run = $750
One-night projects = $400
Visiting our space before preparing a proposal is strongly recommended. We reside in a corner storefront, 85 meters northwest of the Loyola Red Line CTA Station, with large south-facing windows, track lighting, a sunken floor from the street with blue-gray carpet, an irregular non-load bearing plaster ceiling, and almost no storage space. The building at 1224-1234 West Loyola was built in 1928 with boiler-controlled radiator heating; work that needs a climate controlled environment should not be proposed for this storefront location. Roman Susan welcomes proposals for collaborative projects at other locations as well – see romansusan.org/annex for past programming sites.
Below are additional materials for an idea of the storefront's spatial resources:
Floorplan (png) and 3D model (skp).