A photographer will be commissioned to be in-residence for approximately four
months in the Communications and Public Affairs Division of Seattle City Light
facilities and operations, interacting with staff, observing and recording departmental
activities. The photographer will participate in public presentations and meet the
artist events for Seattle City Light staff. At the end of the residency period, the
photographer will create a suite of photographic works for inclusion in the Seattle
City Light Portable Works Collection.
Seattle City Light, a publicly-owned utility, is responsible for providing its customers
with the lowest cost, most reliable and environmentally-responsible electricity
services in urban America. The Seattle Arts Commission and Seattle City Light seek
a photographer to work in residence in the Communications and Public Affairs
Division of the utility to portray Seattle City Light and its people as they begin to
move into their second century of public service.
The photographer-in-residence will be asked to consider some of these questions:
What does public ownership of a utility meanNULL
What are the values of a publicly-owned utilityNULL
How are these values expressed in the environment we sustain, the
machines we run, our commerce and our private livesNULL
How do we perceive the people who work in a utility-from those who build
and operate the hydroelectric plants to the lineworkers who bring power to
our homes and places of businessNULL
Carl Sandburg's poem Limited provides some inspiration of people and machines
in motion, in time.
I am riding on a Limited Express, one of the crack trains of the
nation.
Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all
steel coaches holding a thousand people.
(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and
women laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.)
I ask the man in the smoker where he is going and he answers:
'Omaha.'
Eligibility
This program is open to established professional photographers living in the
Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska and British
Columbia). Photographers may work in any aspect of photographic expression.
The Seattle Arts Commission encourages artistic diversity. Artists whose work is
well-represented in the City's collection are eligible to apply for any commission,
but the artist selection panel will be asked to consider artistic diversity as one factor
in selecting artists for commissions.
Budget
$15,000 is available to support the residency and to produce a suite of exhibition
quality photographic works. Additional funds may be available to support the
residency and exhibition of works.
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