Welcome to Digital Offerings, a website produced in association with the exhibit Digital Offerings for the Altar of Life. This website and exhibit are based on the Mexican tradition of Day of the Dead. We are seeking to exhibit images by artists from all over the world that illustrate how the dead are celebrated and mourned in their country, culture, or family. If you are unfamiliar with the traditions of Day of the Dead click here for a helpful article.
This website is intended to act as an online artist call, it allows national and international artists to submit images that will be reviewed by curators from galleries and museums in San Francisco, California. Images selected by curators will be displayed and exhibited during the months of October, November, and December as art of Day of the Dead exhibits throughout the city. This bold new experiment is being undertaken to change the way digital art and the web are integrated into these exhibits. The best digital images will be printed and displayed alongside the Day of the Dead altars and installations in the art spaces. The images not selected for printing will be used in a digital slide show to be projected on a large screen in the SomArts gallery, outdoor projections at the Mission Cultural Center, and digital displays at the de Young Museum.
Participating galleries and museums include:
The de Young Museum
The South of Market Cultural Center (SomArts)
The Mission Cultural
Center
The San
Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
This website is produced by SomArts with support from the San Francisco Arts Commission. To see a video of SomArts' 2006 Day of the Dead exhibit click here.
Instructions
1. Register with us by creating an account of Digital Offerings. Your information will be used to notify you if your image is selected for exhibition. You can register by clicking here. Once you are registered you may upload images to Digital Offerings at any time, simply click login to sign into you account.
2. Once you have created your account or logged in click on the gallery link. Chose one of our four categories to submit your image(s) to. Each category is a different theme or concept related to celebrating and mourning the dead. Once an image is uploaded it will be on display in the gallery of that respective category.
3. When uploading images note that they must be high resolution originals - at least 2200 pixels tall or wide. If you're shooting digital, make sure your camera is set to the highest possible setting. Check to see if your camera is 6 megapixels or more. If it's not, sorry, it's too low res to participate. If you're scanning film, make sure you're scanning it at a high (print) resolution.
Remember, we don't want all your images - we want your best images.
4. Curators from the participating galleries and museums will select images for their respective shows. If one of your images is selected for exhibition you will be notified by email.
Registration and upload help
To Register For the site:
Many free email providers (Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc...) may be blocking email from Digital Offerings. Please add webmaster@digitalofferings2007.com to your safe list so you receive the confirmation email.
1. Go to the Registration Page
Fill in all fields and click 'Register'
2. You should receive a confirmation email in a few minutes (see below). If you don't see it in your inbox, check your 'spam' folder.
Click the confirmation link to activate your account.
To Upload your picture:
1. Login to your account
2. Select the album you want to add your picture to.
3. Click 'Add Items' in the upper left hand corner.
4. Click the 'Browse' Button, and select the picture you want to upload.
Add a caption (description) if you wish, and click 'Add Items' at the bottom.
Depending on your connection speed, it may take several minutes to upload your photo. Do not navigate away from the page until you receive a confirmation that your upload is complete.
If you have any questions, please contact rio@somarts.org or call 415.863.1414 x104
Themes
- Photos or images of altars. What does an altar mean in your part of the world and in your culture?
- Photos or artwork of someone that has passed away that the artist would like to honor.
- Photos or images illustrating how a culture mourns or celebrates when someone close to them passes away. How do you honor the dead in your culture, in your city, in your family?
- Detailed proposals with accurate measurements for art installations to honor someone. For some of the exceptional proposals, we will try to raise the money to build/create the installations.
Guidelines
This is a curated exhibit using images submitted by the public. Not every image submitted will be exhibited, featured, or otherwise displayed. We reserve the right to select images for the exhibit based on our discretion as curators.
For all images
- Color correct! Make sure your blacks are really black.
- Bigger is better! The minimum is 2200 pixels, but the higher the resolution, the better.
For Photographs
NO Digitally-Added Text
You do not need to add a copyright statement to your photos in order
to protect them. Your photos are protected under copyright law anyway,
and you don't lose that protection by submitting them here.
NO Multiple Photos in a Single Upload
We require that only one image be included in each file. We will not
cut or crop photos so one photo per upload, please.
NO Misrotated Photos
There's no way to rotate a photo once it's been uploaded so please rotate
your photos to the correct orientation before uploading them.
NO Digitally-Added Borders
Please don't add a border to your images. If your photo has a "natural" border
from the film, that's okay.
NO Digital Enlargements
We will only accept photos that are at least 2200 pixels wide or tall.
This requirement is to make sure your photos look good when we print
display them! Please do not enlarge your photo’s dimensions,
as it lowers the image quality dramatically.
NO Partial Desaturation (aka "Cutouts")
Desaturating part of an image to direct the eye to the remaining color
part is a cute technique, but we'll never print it. It violates our "mostly
unmodified" rule.
For all other images
NO Digitally-Added Borders
Please don't add a border to your images. If a border is key to the concept
of the image, then it will be allowed. Otherwise, images with borders
will be discarded.
NO Digital Enlargements
We will only accept images that are at least 2200 pixels wide or tall.
This requirement is to make sure your photos look good when we print
and display them! Please do not enlarge your photo’s dimensions,
as it lowers the image quality dramatically.
Copyright Information: You retain all rights to your work. By submitting your work here, you grant Digital Offerings the right to do the following things with your images: put them on the web, display them in an exhibit, and use them in the promotion of current and future Digital Offerings exhibits.
This website is produced by SomArts with support from the San Francisco Arts Commission. The lead curator is Rene Yanez. Rene Yanez has been curating Day of the Dead for more than 30 years in San Francisco. His history with Day of the Dead started in 1972 at the Galeria de la Raza in San Franisco's Latino neighborhood, the Mission District. Throughout the years Yanez has integrated diverse cultures into his Day of the Dead exhibits and transformed it into a cultural phenomenon. In San Francisco alone, Rene Yanez has curated Day of the Dead exhibits at Galeria de la Raza, Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Arts, and Yerba Buena Center for the arts. Additionally, he developed the first Day of the Dead processions in San Francisco, which are now fixtures in the celebration. Yañez’s annual exhibit has been housed for the last 10 years at the South of Market Cultural Center (SomArts). Each exhibit uses the large expanse of SomArts’ Bay Gallery and takes advantage of its dazzling theatrical lighting. Working with Nick Gomez we have built complex structures for artists to display contemporary ephemeral installations and traditional altars.
For questions and technical support contact: support@somarts.org
