On June 1st, 2014, the Linden Endowment for the Arts Committee announced the opening of the seventh round of land grants for the Artists in Residence (AIR) programme.
Twenty regions (LEA10 through LEA29), donated by Linden Lab and managed by the LEA, are generally offered under the AIR programme, and successful applicants will be given the use of one full region for a period of five months. The region may then be used on an individual or group basis for such diverse activities as:
- Full sim exhibitions and / or immersive installations
- Curated projects, especially those which have a connection to physical exhibitions and events (mixed reality).
Artists are asked to take no more than 3 months to execute their build, so that their installation is open to the public for at least the last 2 months of their grant. However, artists may also open their installation ahead of the three-month build deadline, and many artists in the past have used their land to have multiple exhibits.
The timeline for application as it currently stands is:
- Application deadline: June 30th, 2014
- Notification by: July 15th, 2014
- Sim handover and public announcement: July 31st, 2014
- End of round: December 31st, 2014.
Artists and performers wishing to apply should read the round announcement and complete the application form at the bottom of that page.
Other LEA Opportunities
A blog post by LEA Committee member Honour McMillan, outlines other available LEA grant options, and how to apply for them. In brief, these are:
- LEA6 hosts the Full Sim Arts series, curated by JayJay Zifanwe. The region is made available on a one month basis to artists, with slots now open from July 2014 onwards. Applications for the use of the region should be made directly to JayJay in-world
- Five additional core regions (LEA1, LEA2, LEA4, LEA8 and LEA9) are available. These offer the most flexible use of LEA regions, and can be used for periods of approximately 3 months duration, the time and amount of land provided dependent upon the use defined in the application form, with applications accepted on an ongoing basis
The remaining three regions of the LEA are all “special purpose” regions. these are:
- LEA3: the new LEA gateway, which I blogged about here
- LEA5: the LEA sandbox, available to members of the LEA group
- LEA7: home of the Machinima Open Studio Project, which I’ve reviewed on a number of occasions, offering sets and locations for machinima makers
So whatever you needs arts and / or performance-wise, the Linden Endowment for the Arts may well have you covered, land-wise. So why not drop them an application today?
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
Hi Inara!
This is exciting news, I’ve been waiting for the next round of proposals to open. I’m working on my *Edie’s Farm* proposal now.
The LEA land grants are such a great thing! One thing I’ve wondered is that you so often see artists put up crazy mountain slopes and/or megaprims at the region borders to block out a view, or effectively access, to their neighbors. This is understandable of course. They might have special lighting or other attributes of their build that require special settings.
Still, my own work is about community, interaction, and co-creation. For me those “curtain walls” are such a break in the arts community I’m interested in. I’d love it if the LEA application had a check box like “I prefer a solo sim and will probably erect curtain walls to set my region off from neighbors” — OR — I’m interested in having other artists border my region. I’m willing to not put up walls or hills and have my region terraform continuously with my neighbors so that visitors can easily see and walk between our regions.”
Or something to that effect. That way artists who wanted isolated regions could still have them, but even if there were only 4 artists who would like to have walkable space, then they could be sited together in one of the clusters of 4 LEA sims.
Do you know if there’s any way to request that or to try to have that an option for the future?
Thanks so much Inara! I’m really looking forward to submitting my proposal to LEA!
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Hi, Edie!
Regions can be set so that their neighbours are “invisible” to those on the region, but to be honest – it’s been so long since I operated a region of my own, I’ve forgotten if it’s a switch in the estate manager’s controller or something else, or if there are limits on how it can be used. The best thing to do on this is ping one of the LEA Committee members. Good luck with your application! Hopefully, we’ll see you listed when the AIR results are released!
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haha, thanks Inara!
I actually wanted to do the opposite, not make other regions invisible, but visible! 😀
I’ll ping the committee. Thanks so much!!
xo
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I was thinking more about your comment on curtain walls (and “box walls”) which so often bound regions. Identifying who would like a “solo” region might allow those artists to be grouped together on sets of 4 regions where the switch could be flipped.
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OIC, yes, that would be better than the ridiculously sloping vertical mountains (terraforming) or the ugly curtains (megaprims)! 😀
Again since my own work is so much about building Community, Interaction, and Co-creation I really dream of seeing a 4-region mini-archipelago that you can effortlessly and “invitedly” walk across. Given how many artists have compelling, dramatic, very specific visions, that might not be realistic. But perhaps 4 out of 20 could work that way.
I was toying with the idea of trying to put my own group of 4 artists together and submitting, not exactly “one” proposal, but noting that if we were given a land grant, we’d like to be co-located. But a full region for almost half a year is a pretty substantial commitment to drag 3 other artists into! So it occurred to me that it wouldn’t be hard – at least for the round after this one – for the LEA to have a box to express preference on this and group artists accordingly.
A difference I think between SL and The Net in general, is that while perhaps everyone in SL thinks of it as a “Place,” on The Net I think many do think of The Net as a place, but many don’t. Here in the US, it’s interesting when people from the East Coast visit the West Coast because in the West, Highways tend to be referred to as “The”. So on the East Coast it’s “I-95” or “I-80.” But on the West coast it’s “The 405” or “The 5.” Perhaps it’s part of West Coast car culture or the vastness of the spaces here that we give these highways the status of “The”.
While it feels like residents in SL do perhaps universally afford it the status of “Place,” as in “The Internet is a thing; SL is a place.” Still, whether it’s disharmonious parcels on the mainland, huge curtains of trees in Avalon, or pretending-I-have-no-neighbors @LEA, I so often see place in a personal and private sense rather than in a community sense. There is plenty of community in SL the way people interact, but maybe less so in the way we share our land borders.
haha, that’s a lot of blabbing, sorry! But anyway, big as a single region is by itself, I’m still eager to see a 4-region *community* that fosters and encourages visitor walking tours to all the neighbors. I think the 20th century was so much about the “art star,” and for me the 21st is less about the heroic genius and more about relational aesthetics and building community.
Thanks again Inara!
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