Open Call to Artists
The Union Cooperative Initiative is issuing an open call to artists, illustrators, and designers for a new graphic for our Mayworks Festival in connection with MayDay International Workers’ Day in British Columbia (BC).
The Mayworks Festival celebrates the diverse artists and working people at the intersection of art, social justice, and labour. Mayworks festivals take place in communities around the world and was relaunched in BC in 2023 by a volunteer steering committee after the last festival in 2012.
The festival brings together artists and workers from a diverse range of organizations in the visual & media arts, community arts, cooperatives, and labour movement to celebrate the rich history of working people in BC.
Deadline for first draft of artwork March 31.
Click Here for PDF More Information: 2024 Open Artist Call
Mayworks Design
$250 & 20% of all merch sales in perpetuity Full public artist credit
Note: 50% of the artist fee will be paid upon contract signing and the remaining fee will be paid upon delivery of the final graphic.
The Mayworks design will be used as the main graphic for the 2024 Mayworks Festival including the website and in connection with a series of public events celebrating the intersection of arts and labour. The design will also be featured on our Shopify store and on various merch, including, but not limited to, shirts, totes, buttons, and stickers.
Priority is given to BIPOC artists, artists from under-represented and marginalized communities, and active BC-based artist members of the Arts and Cultural Workers Union (ACWU), IATSE Local B778 or other affiliate cultural workers union.
Mayworks is an incubated cooperative project of the Union Cooperative Initiative (UCI). The UCI is building an economy that works for all through the development, incubation, and operation of union cooperatives that are good for people and the planet. We are a non-profit solidarity cooperative with a mission to build a worker-centred social and solidarity economy at home and abroad.
The Arts and Cultural Workers Union (ACWU), IATSE Local B778 was formed to work in solidarity with the broader labour movement to address the common issues of income precarity, exploitation, and job insecurity in the arts and cultural sector.