Project funding
The visual arts project fund

In order to submit an application, you or your project partner must register and create a profile
on the Goethe-Institut's funding portal. You can register as an individual, as an institution or as a collective (provided that one individual is named as the contact person).

The project partner who creates this profile and fills out the application will be designated as the official applicant. Other project partners may be introduced on the application portal. All project partners are required to confirm their participation in the project. This may be done by uploading to the portal individual or jointly written and signed informal letters of confirmation.

We would expect confirmed cooperation with at least one institution (museum, art association,
Project space, etc.).

An institution that is applying as a lead applicant will need to submit the name of a specific individual as a contact person, who will then be working creatively and as an equal partner with the other project partners. Please specify their role and detailed scope of work in the application. While applications on those terms are possible in principle, please ensure that such a project constellation does not amount to simply commissioning an artist/curator.

Along those lines, two institutions may apply with a joint project, provided that they meet all other criteria. We may give preference to smaller, less financially robust Institutions.

No, that is not possible.

There are no limits to your creativity when it comes to designing a format, as long as it fulfills the criteria of transnational, equal cooperation in a newly created content-focused project. Digital formats are also eligible.

The project fund provides an opportunity to engage cross-disciplinary discourses and research questions, and offers spaces to reflect critically on Western European/North American influenced discourses and to develop alternative perspectives.
For that reason, projects must create connections between team leaders from at least two countries (including Germany). To emphasize our goal that Germany should not be the project’s only focus, final presentation of projects outside Germany is obligatory. Complex project structures that enable networking in more than a two-partner constellation are expressly encouraged. It is further desirable to see projects offer an extended framing and support program. This might include, for example, guided tours, artist talks or the development of a publication. Additionally, the sustainable involvement of an exhibition site’s surroundings as well as the integration of (infra-) structures, which remain even after the project terminates can ensure and increase the degree of ‘complexity’. Lastly, we welcome participatory, inclusive, and interactive project content that engages the exhibition site and involves local residents and artistic milieu, and thus helps lay the foundation for a long-term exchange.

Examples of previously funded projects can be viewed here

The project will have to be presented to the public in at least one location in a professional environment outside of Germany. Interventions in public space are an option.

• - We do not fund projects that have already started at the time of application (with the exception, of course, of networking meetings, conceptual and planning sessions in preparation for project applications to funders.). These include:
  - Projects already underway at the time of the application deadline
  - Ongoing, long-term projects
  - Regularly scheduled repeating projects, such as biennials.
• In addition, we will not support projects that do not inherently provide for equality and a dialogic approach between project partners, such as:
  - Commissioned works
  - Exhibitions, residencies and travel by individual artists or curators undertaken at the invitation of an institution.
  - Existing exhibitions that are to be shown at an additional location
  - Residency programs
• We also do not fund pure publication projects

Funding is provided for honoraria as well as travel, subsistence and visa costs for
the participants, as well as temporary room rentals, the production costs of the
project, its final presentation, etc. Per diems may be claimed in compliance with the
Federal Travel Expenses Act.

Ongoing expenses and fixed costs (such as rent or lease payments, electricity and heating costs of participating institutions, etc.) will not be eligible for financing by the fund.

Increases in the amount of funding after the fact are not possible. Please keep us advised of any detail changes in your budget, especially if you receive third-party funding commitments or refusals that impact the feasibility of your project.
 

If expenses included in the scope of the project have to be met prior to the date of application or adjudication, please include an informal request for a so-called ‘Early Start of Measures (Project Start)’. Note that if granted, consent to an early start of measures will not constitute a binding declaration of intent, nor confirmation of funding by the Goethe-Institut. Any and all bookings and contracts entered into before a binding commitment has been made are undertaken at your own risk. Payments made prior to the start of the funding period cannot be retroactively charged against the funds granted and will have to be paid from own or third-party funds.