Request for Qualifications: A/V, Video & Sound Artist for Beyond These Gates
Seeking A/V, Video & Sound Artist for Beyond These Gates: Remembering Home, the Prison, and a Place Yet to Be
RFQ Release:: August 20, 2026
RFQ Submission Due: September 8, 2026
Artist Selection: September 11, 2026
Public Event: November 11, 2026
Location: Kan-Kan Cinema and Restaurant, Indianapolis, Indiana
Apply here.
The Opportunity
City Rising seeks an A/V artist, video artist, sound artist, multimedia artist, or interdisciplinary artist to create a series of short audiovisual works for Beyond These Gates: Remembering Home, the Prison, and a Place Yet to Be, a live public event exploring memory, incarceration, place, redevelopment, and possibility through the former site of the Indiana Women's Prison in Indianapolis.
The selected artist will work primarily with edited spoken-word audio, poetry, and first-person video provided by City Rising to create audiovisual pieces incorporating music, soundscape, moving image, and other visual or sonic approaches.
This is not primarily a filmmaking or documentary assignment. Nor are we seeking technical A/V production for the live event.
We are seeking an artist who can build around voices and stories using sound, music, moving image, abstraction, and other artistic techniques to deepen their emotional gravity and expand how audiences encounter and understand them.
About Beyond These Gates
Beyond These Gates examines the former Indiana Women's Prison site through the memories and perspectives of women who lived there and the complicated questions surrounding what this place has been, what it means now, and what it might become.
The project is particularly interested in what women who experienced incarceration at the site want from its redevelopment. We also examine the history of the former IWP, how this site shaped the communities surrounding it, and what it means to redevelop and remember the former IWP. As such, this project resists simple answers.
Multiple histories, memories, meanings, responsibilities, community needs, and future possibilities converge on this place. Honoring the memories of women who lived there is not necessarily the same as determining what is best for the surrounding community. Historical accounts of a place may differ from how that place is remembered and experienced. Redevelopment introduces still other questions about responsibility, belonging, use, and possibility.
The November 11 live event will bring together edited oral-history interviews, live conversations, poetry, and audiovisual interpretation to create conditions for audiences to sit with these complexities rather than resolve them.
Artistic Approach
The voice of the storyteller is primary.
The audiovisual work should deepen audiences' encounters with the spoken word rather than overwhelm it. Music, soundscape, imagery, movement, silence, repetition, abstraction, and other techniques may be used to heighten feeling, introduce additional layers of meaning, and invite audiences to listen and see differently.
City Rising values emotional and interpretive effectiveness over technical complexity.
Because this project will move through an accelerated production schedule, artists are encouraged to develop a cohesive visual and sonic language that can be carried efficiently across the collection. Repetition of imagery, motifs, textures, musical elements, visual treatments, and other creative devices is welcomed when it strengthens the work or facilitates production.
Abstraction, minimalism, repetition, restrained movement, layering, typography, image manipulation, soundscape, and other economical approaches are welcome.
Techniques that allow for experimentation, intuition, rapid execution, and flashes of creative inspiration are preferred over unnecessary production complexity.
We are interested in what the artistic idea allows an audience to feel, notice, question, and understand—not complexity.
Scope of the Commission
The anticipated collection consists of five Longs, five Shorts, and one closing credits sequence.
Five Longs
Each Long will be approximately seven minutes.
City Rising will provide the artist with fully edited spoken-word interview audio. These interviews have already been editorially developed and should generally play as delivered.
The artist will create the visual treatment, music and/or background score, soundscape, and other audiovisual elements surrounding the spoken word.
City Rising will also provide selected first-person video recordings for incorporation into the Longs.
These videos were recorded vertically on a cellphone by a woman who was formerly incarcerated at the Indiana Women's Prison when she later returned to and moved through the former prison space. The recordings include her narration as she encounters and remembers the site.
City Rising will provide preliminary direction regarding which recordings correspond with particular Longs and their anticipated sequence. The artist's perspective is welcomed, however, and thoughtful recommendations about alternative placement, treatment, or integration are encouraged.
When these videos appear as narrated sequences, the current intention is to retain their original narration. Visual elements from the recordings may also be repeated, extracted, or incorporated elsewhere in the collection without their narration when artistically appropriate.
Five Shorts
Each Short will be approximately three and a half minutes and will accompany a live poetry performance.
City Rising will provide the artist with a spoken-word recording of the corresponding poem. This recording is reference material for the artist and should not be embedded in the finished Short.
Instead, the artist will create an approximately three-and-a-half-minute visual and sonic accompaniment that responds to the poem and expands its feeling and interpretive possibilities.
During the November 11 event, the poet will perform the poem live while the artist's finished audiovisual track plays in accompaniment. The work should therefore create space for the live human voice rather than compete with it.
Because the finished Shorts will accompany live performances, artists should avoid treatments that depend upon frame-perfect synchronization with the reference recording unless specifically coordinated with City Rising. Visual and sonic treatments should allow reasonable flexibility for natural variations in the timing and cadence of live performance.
Title Treatments
Each of the ten Longs and Shorts should include a title screen.
The selected artist will develop a consistent title treatment and onscreen duration that helps establish continuity across the collection.
Individual works may have distinct visual identities, but audiences should experience the pieces as belonging to a larger artistic whole.
Closing Credits
The artist will also create an approximately two-minute closing credits sequence highlighting text onscreen.
The credits should draw from the broader visual and sonic vocabulary developed for the project so that they function as a conclusion to the audiovisual experience rather than simply an administrative credits roll.
Source Materials and Creative Freedom
City Rising will provide the primary materials necessary to complete the commission, including:
edited oral-history audio for the Longs;
recorded poetry readings for development of the Shorts;
first-person cellphone video recorded inside the former Indiana Women's Prison; and
titles, credits, and other necessary project information.
The artist will have broad freedom to create or source additional visual and sonic material in ways appropriate to their concept.
Possible approaches may include still photography, original footage, appropriately licensed or public-domain materials, typography, textures, motion graphics, animation, image manipulation, abstraction, environmental imagery, repeated visual motifs, original music, soundscape, or combinations of these and other techniques.
Original filming or extensive new material collection is not required.
The artist will also be invited to attend project production meetings and review additional project materials for context or creative inspiration. Participation in these activities is welcomed but is not an expectation or prerequisite for completing the work
Fidelity to the Storytellers
Creative freedom is intentionally broad, but that freedom is bounded by fidelity to the people whose stories make this project possible.
Artists are encouraged to interpret, experiment, abstract, repeat, layer, juxtapose, and transform source materials in service of the larger artistic experience.
Artistic treatment should strengthen, expand, or complicate audiences' encounters with storytellers' perspectives. It should not alter source material in ways that misrepresent their experiences, manufacture meanings they did not express, or betray the intent of their stories.
The first-person video material may be treated creatively, but its use should preserve the authenticity and perspective of the woman who created it.
Artificial Intelligence
AI-assisted tools may be used as part of the production process when appropriate, but any proposed use of generative AI must be disclosed to and approved by City Rising.
Generative AI may not be used to create synthetic representations of the women or other people whose experiences and perspectives are part of this project, nor may it be used to manufacture imagery that could reasonably be interpreted as authentic historical or documentary material.
AI may be considered as a production or artistic tool when its use is transparent and consistent with the project's commitments to authenticity and fidelity to storytellers.
Live Event and Technical Responsibilities
The completed works will premiere as part of the Beyond These Gates live event at Kan-Kan on November 11, 2026.
The artist is responsible for delivering completed, playback-ready audiovisual files according to technical specifications provided by City Rising and the venue.
City Rising will coordinate projection and sound playback with Kan-Kan. The artist is not responsible for operating projection, sound, or other A/V systems during the public event.
If they live within 50 miles of Indianapolis, the selected artist will, however, be expected to:
attend and actively participate in a technical rehearsal prior to the event; and
attend the November 11 public event.
Additional involvement in transitions, live audio, or other aspects of the event may be explored collaboratively if useful, but these activities are not the primary purpose of the commission.
Production Schedule
This project has a strict and accelerated production schedule. Applicants should consider their ability to work independently, make creative decisions efficiently, communicate reliably, and meet the following milestones:
August 20 — RFQ published
September 11 — Artist selected and contracted
September 16 — Primary source materials delivered to artist
September 28 — Initial creative direction/sample review
October 12 — Substantial work-in-progress review demonstrating the established visual/sonic language and progress across the collection
October 13–November 7 — Refinement and revisions
November 8 — Final playback-ready files due
TBD, prior to November 11 — Technical rehearsal at Kan-Kan
November 11 — Beyond These Gates live event
The October 12 milestone does not require completed rough cuts of all ten pieces. The purpose of this review is to confirm the emerging visual and sonic language, review substantial work completed to date, and identify any necessary adjustments while sufficient production time remains.
The review process is intentionally lightweight. City Rising anticipates an early creative-direction review and a substantive work-in-progress review rather than multiple formal rounds of revisions.
Compensation
This is a paid artistic commission with a defined project budget.
City Rising recognizes the accelerated timeline and substantial creative contribution required and has structured the scope to encourage efficient, repeatable, minimalist, and experimental production approaches.
Applicants are not being asked to submit a proposed fee or project budget as part of their qualifications.
Compensation, payment schedule, and final scope will be discussed with the selected artist prior to execution of the artist agreement.
Rights and Future Use
The selected artist may retain copyright in their original artistic contributions.
As part of the artist agreement, the artist will grant City Rising and Better Idea Holding Company broad, perpetual rights to exhibit, present, distribute, stream, and reuse the completed work and excerpts from it as part of Beyond These Gates and related educational, public, promotional, and digital activities.
This may include incorporation of audio, music, score, imagery, or excerpts into the Beyond These Gates podcast; project websites and digital materials; social media and promotional materials; future presentations or exhibitions; educational uses; and other activities associated with the project.
The artist will be appropriately credited for their work.
Who We Are Looking For
We welcome qualifications from A/V artists, video artists, sound artists, composers, multimedia artists, experimental filmmakers, motion artists, interdisciplinary artists, and artist teams whose work and approach align with this opportunity.
We are particularly interested in artists who demonstrate:
strong artistic judgment and sensitivity to spoken word and storytelling;
an ability to use sound and/or moving image to create feeling and expand interpretation;
comfort with abstraction, experimentation, minimalism, or unconventional approaches;
an ability to establish a coherent visual and/or sonic language across multiple pieces;
respect for storytellers and source materials;
an ability to work independently and make creative decisions efficiently;
reliability within a strict production timeline; and
an interest in the questions of memory, incarceration, place, community, redevelopment, or possibility explored through this project.
Artists do not need previous experience working on incarceration-related projects.
Emerging artists are encouraged to apply. Formal academic or artistic credentials are not required. Selection will emphasize artistic fit, creative judgment, sensitivity to storytellers and source materials, and demonstrated capacity to complete high-quality work within the accelerated production schedule. Career stage, production scale, and technical complexity are not themselves measures of artistic fit.
How to Respond
We intentionally want to keep this process simple.
Please do not create speculative artwork, storyboards, treatments, budgets, or custom sample work for this RFQ.
Instead, please submit:
A brief statement of interest — approximately 150–500 words telling us why this project interests you and how you generally imagine approaching work of this kind.
Work samples or portfolio — links to approximately 2–5 examples that help us understand your artistic practice. These do not need to resemble Beyond These Gates exactly. We are interested in how you work with image, sound, story, atmosphere, abstraction, emotion, or related forms.
A brief bio or résumé — enough to help us understand your background and artistic practice.
Availability confirmation — confirmation that you are able to begin work in September, meet the accelerated production schedule, participate in the technical rehearsal, and attend the November 11 event in Indianapolis.
APPLY HERE
We are more interested in how you think, what you notice, and what your existing work tells us about your artistic instincts than in receiving a polished proposal for work we have not yet asked you to create. Applicants should not feel obligated to develop a specific creative concept for Beyond These Gates as part of their response. The creative approach will be developed with the selected artist following selection.
Submission Deadline
Qualifications must be received by midnight on September 8, 2026.
Please submit all materials here.
A Final Invitation
This commission asks an artist to work with material that is intimate, complicated, and unusual: women's recollections of incarceration; interviews of people connected to the former IWP and its redevelopment; researcher perspectives on impacts of incarceration; poetry; first-person video recorded during a return to a former prison; a physical place carrying multiple histories; and unresolved questions about what that place should become.
We are not looking for an artist to explain those complexities away.
We are looking for someone who can help an audience hear them, see them, feel their weight, and remain with them long enough to imagine what might come next.