Tips for EOI Submissions for Surrey’s Public Art Opportunities

Updated April 16, 2012

About Tips for Artists This document alerts artists to the recommended format for

presenting photographs of their art work for review by City of Surrey Public Art Selection Panels.

We are now exclusively using digital methods to receive and screen documentation rather than print on paper. (We only print out the materials of the short listed artists)

 The first step in our short listing process is to project each artist’s documentation of past work on a large screen. These images are expected to demonstrate the artists’ experience with public art projects including those of similar scale to the current opportunity, as well as note their use of materials, innovation, adaptation to context and other criteria noted in the EOI.

The images are reviewed multiple times and are the foundation for the first step in short listing candidates for the current project.

Because viewing screens are horizontal we recommend that your documentation be formatted to be seen in this format

About your photographs Highlight a single artwork per page Provide multiple views of your artwork on the same page

when : Its integration or location/context can’t be understood with one

image Details are important to the artwork, and won’t be noticed

otherwise or with a single image If the art work changes, for example looks different in the

daytime, than when illuminated at night If art work is kinetic or interactive, provide images or document

action. (Include a hyperlink to an online video if required) Remember, the selection panel wants to see the whole

artwork, so please include an image that shows it in full. Use high resolution, in focus photographs

Caption your photographs:Near the photo, include information about the artwork

including:

Artist’s name (and team members with roles noted if applicable)

Title of the artwork Size of the artwork Materials used Completion date Budget Client that commissioned the artwork Any other essential information you wish to communicate

about the artwork. Be BRIEF = one or two sentences.

This photo is taken inside the room usually used for the selection panel meetings. Panelists view artist’s submission materials on the screen shown here.

Why a horizontal rather than a vertical format for artist’s EOI submissions?

To demonstrate why we made up sample artwork documentation pages. Each page has images that are the same size, the same words and font size

This photo is taken inside the room usually used for the selection committee meetings. Note the large screen for projecting artist’s EOI documentation and the usual area of the screen used for projections

If you format horizontally, 100% of each page will be shown, and each of your images will be shown as large as possible

Horizontal documents make the best use of the screen’s size

If you format horizontally, 100% of each page will be shown, and each of your images will be shown as large as possible

Vertical documents use only a portion of the screen – they appear almost 1/2 as small as horizontal documents

If you format vertically, each of your images will be shown MUCH SMALLER than those formatted horizontally.

Any other advice? We will update this document with each competition,

as we receive feedback from artists and those serving on our selection panels.

Check the Question and Answer (Q+A) document that accompanies each competition. When artists send us questions, we summarize them and post an answer so everyone has the same information. The Q+A is updated until about a week before the submission deadline.

www.surrey.ca/PublicArt PublicArt@surrey.ca