• Norwegian and Norway-based artists, curators and other art professionals who are invited to participate in exhibitions or projects abroad.
  
  
• Art institutions and curators abroad who invite Norwegian or Norway-based artists, curators and other art professionals to participate in exhibitions and projects abroad.

Artists who are collaborating as a group can apply together in one application. One person needs to be designated as the contact person for the application.

If you are applying for more than one exhibition or project, these must be applied for in separate applications.

If an institution or curator is applying for International Travel Support on behalf of an artist, the artist can apply for International Production Support in a separate application if it has not been previously applied for by an institution or a curator.

International Support is not eligible for:

• Projects or exhibitions that have been previously applied for. These are considered evaluated by the OCA jury and will not be accepted.
  
  
• Applicants who are students when the project applied for is taking place (PhD fellows are exempt from this rule).
  
  
• Norwegian institutions or organisations with annual public funding.

Applications for International Support are accepted for exhibitions or projects abroad. Projects abroad include active participation in professional seminars and other public programmes abroad.

OCA’s International Support scheme has funding allocated to two main types of activity:­ International Travel Support and International Production Support.

Participation in art fairs must be applied for through the support scheme International Support for Galleries and Independent Exhibition Spaces (ISGIES). Individual artists working with printed matter are eligible for International Travel Support when presenting their self-published artistic practices at art book fairs.

International Travel Support

Support can be provided for:

• Travel
• Accommodation
• Transport of artworks, including packaging and building of crates
• Insurance of artworks during transport
• Technical production (graphic design and printing) of relevant printed matter, such as catalogues

Support is not provided for:

• Per diem or living costs
• Salary or other honorarium
• Project development, research or study trips
• Fees for the writing of texts
• Travel for assistants

Costs that are not supported will be deducted from the total application amount if they are applied for.

International Production Support
Artists invited to produce new artworks that will be shown for the first time in an international exhibition or project are eligible for International Production Support.

Support can be provided for:

• Materials
• Services (technical expertise directly involved in the production of the artwork, such as sculpture casting companies, videographers, performers, etc.)

Support is not provided for:

• Installation costs
• Equipment and tools
• Costs for employees at the hosting institution
• General costs for studio assistants
• Rental of studios and workshops
• Artist fees (other than for external performers/technical expertise involved in the production of the work)

Costs that are not supported will be deducted from the total application amount if they are applied for.

All applications that are complete and approved by OCA's administration are assessed by an international jury appointed by OCA. The OCA jury consists of four members appointed by the OCA board. The director of OCA serves as the chairperson of the jury.

All applicants are treated equally. Equality means that all persons are equal regardless of their gender, pregnancy, maternity or adoption leave, caring responsibilities, ethnicity, religion, beliefs, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression or age.

The OCA jury makes its decisions based on its professional and discretionary judgement of the artistic quality of the project.

Artistic quality is assessed on the basis of:

• The artistic practice
• The project
• The institution or exhibition space

Support is prioritised for applications with projects initiated by, or taking place at, key international art institutions and project spaces. The jury may also emphasise the potential opportunities to expand international activity and contribute to the applicant’s long-term development.

Grants are prioritised according to the scheme's criteria, the applications within the specific application round and the available budget allocated to the scheme.

Applicants will receive a reply 6 to 8 weeks after the deadline. 

Please note that the jury's decisions are final and cannot be appealed. OCA does not provide reasons for individual grant decisions.

The OCA jury follows the rules on impartiality in the Public Administration Act (chapter 2).

Application deadlines 

3^rd of February, 3^rd of May and 3^rd of October. The application form closes at 09:00 (CET) the day after the application deadline.

Language of the application 

English – all information, text and attachments in the application must be submitted in English.

Requirements for the application

• A formal invitation from an art institution, gallery or art space abroad, including the names of all the Norwegian and/or Norway-based artists applied for and a time period for the project.
• CV and personalia for the Norwegian and/or Norway-based artists applied for.
• Information about the applicant.
• Descriptions of the project.
• Portfolio (visual material).
• Budget.

Budget requirements

• If you apply for support to produce new works, OCA will need a detailed breakdown of the production costs in the PDF budget that is attached to the application. All the costs applied for (the various materials and technical services) should be separated so that each expense is clearly stated.
  
  
• OCA's support is not intended to cover the entirety of the project. In addition to the support applied for from OCA, the application must include other sources of funding, such as public or private funding, support from the hosting institution or own means.
  
  
• If applying to any of the other organisations in the Norwegian Arts Abroad (NAA) network, the total support from the different applications cannot exceed the amount stated in the budget presented to OCA. It is the applicant's responsibility and obligation to inform OCA of the results of the other applications if this exceeds the stated budget.

An application may be rejected on administrative grounds if:

• It does not meet the application requirements for International Support set out in these guidelines.
• It is received after the application deadline.
• The project takes place in countries, areas or regions that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs advises against visiting in its official travel advice.
• The project has opened or been finalised before the application deadline.
• The report from a previously granted project has not been submitted within its deadline.
• The necessary application requirements, such as a budget or invitation, are missing or incomplete.
• Material or text in the application is in languages other than English and is not corrected within the deadline set by the administration.

If you wish to appeal an individual decision made by OCA regarding grants or administrative assessments, the appeal must be submitted in writing to OCA within three weeks of receiving the decision. The complaint should be justified based on the information that OCA has used in connection with the specific decision.

Only errors in administrative decisions and decisions based on incorrect facts can be appealed. The decisions of the OCA jury are final and cannot be appealed. OCA does not provide reasons for individual grant decisions.

If the conditions for processing the complaint are met, OCA's administration may either reverse the decision or forward the complaint to the relevant appeal body. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the appeal body for International Travel Support and the OCA Board is the appeal body for International Production Support. The decision of the appeal body is final and cannot be appealed further.

The grant is earmarked for the specific project and the eligible costs within the support received (International Travel Support and/or International Production Support). Funding cannot be transferred to other projects. If the project is cancelled or postponed from the dates stated in the application, the applicant must notify OCA immediately.

Significant changes to the project (location, content, participants), schedule or expenses must be applied for in writing and approved by OCA before the grant can be spent.

The grant must be used within two years after the date on the grant confirmation letter; otherwise, the grant will be considered cancelled. Unused parts of the grant must be returned to OCA.

If the grant is not spent in compliance with the terms and conditions of the agreement, OCA can withhold or reclaim the grant in part or in full. 

This can happen if:

• The grant has been spent on a different purpose or exhibition space than that for which the grant was awarded, without written approval.
• The project is cancelled.
• The grant is not spent during the period for which it was awarded
• There is no satisfactory account of how the funds have been utilised.
• The grant recipient provided OCA with incorrect or misleading information or concealed facts that had a notable impact on the grant decision, amount or terms of the grant.

As a grant recipient, please note that you are obliged to keep up to date with and follow the Norwegian authorities' official travel advice.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also produces practical travel information that you may find useful to familiarize yourself with.

As a condition for this support, OCA requires that the institution hosting your project give credit to the Office for Contemporary Art Norway by reproducing its name and logo in all printed matter, catalogues, invitations, press releases, press events and web-related material released in conjunction with the project. You can find OCA’s logo here: https://oca.no/grants-residencies/international-support#logo-download-6

When you post about your project on social media, you can mention OCA by name or tag @oca_norway (Instagram) or Office for Contemporary Art Norway (Facebook)

To request grant payment, you must submit a payment request through the application platform stikk. Under the section ‘Your application’ at the bottom of OCA’s page for Visual Arts on stikk.no, you need to enter the last five digits of your reference number to access the forms for your payment requests, reports, and the status of your application.

International Production Support can only be transferred directly to the artist. If the applicant is an institution or a curator applying for production support on behalf of an artist, you need to inform the artist of this grant and that they must contact OCA to request the payment.

We will then need the following information from the artist:

• Address
• E-mail address
• Telephone Number
• Bank account number
• Organisation number or personal number
• How much of the grant that is to be used on materials and/or services

The transfer of the grant can be done, at the earliest, six months in advance of the opening of the exhibition or event. It is the responsibility and obligation of the applicant to keep OCA informed of the correct dates for the exhibition/project. This is important for the payment, the report and the possibility for OCA to follow and communicate about your project.

Following Norwegian rules for grants, scholarships etc., the Office of the Auditor General of Norway (Riksrevisjonen) is entitled to verify that the grants are used according to the stated conditions. To facilitate this, the grantee must complete the report form and declare how the grant was spent within one month after the completion of the project.

Reports are submitted through the application platform stikk.no. Under the section ‘Your application’ at the bottom of OCA’s page for Visual Arts on stikk.no, you need to enter the last five digits of your reference number to access the forms for your payment requests, reports, and the status of your application.

Report requirements:

• The report must include the project accounting that shows how the grant from OCA was spent. The project accounts must show the total costs for the categories applied for.
  
  
• If receiving International Production support, an additional production report must be filled in by the artist. This form must be uploaded as part of the main report for the project and can be downloaded from the main reporting page.
  
  
• Attendance number for the exhibition or project.
  
  
• Documentation of the exhibition or project.
  
  
• Deviations of more than 10% between the project accounting and the budget on which the grant was based must be explained.

OCA will not accept new applications to the support scheme if a final report from a previous project is missing past its deadline.

Applicants are required to send two copies of exhibition catalogues and all printed materials related to the funded project to OCA. Once the exhibition or project is completed, a comprehensive press file and digital images documenting the supported project should be provided by the press department. Physical promotional material is to be sent to:

Office for Contemporary Art Norway
Re: International Support / Report
Ref.nr.: [your reference number]
Nedre gate 7
0551 Oslo, Norway

Please note that OCA may publish the names and projects of successful applicants, along with images from applications and reports on various non-commercial platforms, including the OCA website, newsletter, and Annual Report.

Registration of personal data, GDPR. Art. 5

To apply for support, it is obligatory for applicants and participants named in the project to register personal data in order for OCA to check that the terms for applying are met and that that the jury can evaluate the application.

The applicant registers all data by themselves. The applicant may ask for corrections, deletion, and limitations of parts of the data they themselves have registered after the jury evaluation.

Archiving of personal data, GDPR. Art. 13

The personal data that applicants register in the application will be archived in STIKK.NO to give a historical account of the applicants to this support scheme without any time limitation. Previously received applications and support from OCA are included in the information that the jury might ask for access to within the jury meeting evaluation process. Access to application data in STIKK.NO is for each application round given to the jury members in a limited period up to the jury meeting. Employees in OCA and IT responsible for the technical platform have permanent access to all data in STIKK.NO.

Applicants can ask for access to and rectification or erasure of parts of these data after the jury process.

Data on all applicants will be used for developing statistics for evaluation of the support schemes and for other cultural-political purposes, however without any links to the name of the applicants.

All have the right to complain to The Norwegian Data Protection Authority if the data controller Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), Nedre gate 7, 0551 Oslo. Telephone: 23233150, uses personal data in STIKK.NO in conflict with what is being said here.

Publishing of personal data, GDPR. Art. 6 no. 1 letter b

Those who are granted support must in order to have the amount paid to fill in a payment request.

This obligatory payment request is an agreement between the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) and the participant(s) or institution(s) being given support. It is based on the assumption that Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) is granted the right to convey data on whom the support is granted to, the main person(s) in the project, description of the project that the support was granted to, the time for the project and the amount granted – without any time limit.

The mission that the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) has from the Norwegian Government is to promote and professionalize Norwegian participation in international collaboration within visual art.

The support is provided by public means and it is important that the allocation of the support is transparent.

Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) executes a public function and must in retrospect be able to document how the institution has attended to this assignment by audit.