2025 BRIEF

Open call

The Antepavilion competition is open to everyone; no qualifications are required. We make available some specialist skills, particularly metalworking and structural engineering support. But the overriding requirement is that entrants must be able to make and install their work essentially themselves.

Brief

As usual, the 2025 brief is open to broad interpretation.  Entrants need have regard only to the location where their proposal is to be realised and the platform, podium or plinth as its base. But as usual, there is some background and history of Antepavilion and its home, Brunswick and Columbia Wharves, to which entrants should be alert. First there is the recent history of the particular rooftop location and the installations that have previously stood upon it.  These are shown above.  Some more information on each is available elsewhere on this site. 

And then there is the recent conclusion of Antepavilion’s fight for survival against attack by Hackney Council.  This is well documented (more information in resources) and took in various specific installations displayed on the rooftops of the buildings.  But it reached its absurdist apogee following the installation of Sharks! in 2020.  Seemingly enraged beyond the powers of their reason to contain the Council launched into planning enforcement and legal action against Antepavilion that sought to extinguish what the Wharves had been doing for 25 years: the production and display of art.  As the tide in the planning appeals and the courts turned against them they became self-parody.  A high-water mark in this process was reached when they argued that any use of the site whatsoever was unlawful.

Local authorities routinely count on the indulgence of the Planning Inspectorate and the Courts and they are usually not disappointed, but there is a limit and eventually Hackney’s expectations that their unreal submissions would be humoured indefinitely were dashed.  Finally in 2024 Antepavilion triumphed and the Council was forced to accept Hoxton Docks was exactly what it had been for decades.  In less oppressive times this victory would not have required a fight.  But in 2020’s Britain it took four years, multiple litigations and planning appeals, and of course money, to secure.  So this year’s installation in the Wharves’ most prominent display space will, by its timing, be something of a war memorial. 

Since the early 1990’s Brunswick and Columbia wharves have been providing artists’ studios and display spaces under the charitable structure that has evolved into the present Antepavilion.  In that time its studios have accommodated some of the Country’s best-known artists.  Its survival against the attack launched by Hackney on the back of Sharks! is not its first.  In 2004 the Council tried a different method of closing us down, namely a threat of compulsory purchase in a dubious collaboration with, Union Bank of Switzerland under the then Mayor Jules Pipe.  That threat was defeated with a concerted counter-attack by a determined and resourceful group of the resident artists at that time.  Pipe came to resent the bad publicity that his collaboration with UBS rightly brought upon him.  We like to think that similar recriminations are now going on in Hackney about the protracted Sharks! debacle on which the Council wasted £100,000.

Facilities

The winner of the competition, as usual, will have facilities at the Docks for any construction work required for installation of the winning entry.  Any lifting equipment necessary can be arranged and accommodated at the site.

Re-use

As with previous Antepavilion briefs, re-use of materials is encouraged. Available materials include some structural steel and timbers, including those used in Antechamber. Also, notably this year we have acquired a large quantity of reclaimed Red Douro lath cladding that has been very expensively removed and replaced in one of the hundreds of cases of blocks of flats that were recognised to be a fire risk only when Grenfell happened.  Some of these materials will be presented to entrants at the open days and many can be seen in the resources file.

Budget and Prize

One change for this year is that entrants are encouraged to consider the budget for the project more carefully. The long-standing budget for past Antepavilions has been £25,000 which is split into a £10,000 prize fund and up to £15,000 worth of materials, equipment and labour. Teams were always free to put a portion of the prize fund towards their production budget. This provision will not change for 2025 but it should be regarded as a cap on the funding available.  Big is not necessarily beautiful or poignant and thus entrants who can produce an installation that delivers the impact they aim to make on a lower budget are encouraged to make their proposals accordingly.  

Carefully considered budgeting is an essential element of the Antepavilion Competition. In a parallel initiative this year Antepavilion will again be using its newly available Southwark site, this time for supporting the development of some of last year’s shortlisted entries that needed too much further development to be selected by the judges as winners of the competition.  Entries in the 2025 competition will not be disadvantaged by working to the established budget rule.  However, any costs saved if a lower cost entry is selected as the winner will support the parallel work on the Southwark site.  So if two entries are considered by the judges to be of equal merit the lower cost of one over the other will be a decisive factor.  Where entrants propose a lower budget for their entries they may simply scale down both components of the usual 60:40 £25,000 budget equally.

Again as in the past the winning team will have access to machinery and craftsmen on site and at nearby commercial workshops.

Timetable

Closing date for entries is midnight on Friday 14 March.

Shortlisted entrants will be notified by Monday 24 March and invited to present their proposal in greater detail to the judges on Thursday 10 April.

Winners will be notified on Friday 11 April. 

Installation is to be completed over a period of no more than 6 weeks in June or July.

Opening event for the 2025 Antepavilion will be 1 August.

Process and Selection

So we can update you on resources and open days register your interest.

Entries to the Antepavilion competition should be submitted digitally using the online entry form.

Each entry should comprise a proposal title, team or individual name and two A3 boards showing the proposed work formatted as a single PDF document. The PDF should be named in the following format:

[name of proposal]_[name of Individual/practice/artist].pdf

The boards themselves must be anonymous. Please do not include the names or contact details of you or your team in the PDF, only as the file name and in the entry form. Entries will be considered by a cross-disciplinary jury to be announced shortly including present and former resident artists at the Docks and the makers of previous installations on the platform.

Three to five entries will be chosen for further development. A small bursary of £500 will be given to the shortlisted applicants to fund development of their final presentation. Structural engineering support will also be available to develop the shortlisted proposals at this stage if required.

All entries will be displayed at the opening party on 1 August

Open Days

Potential entrants are invited to view the site on one of three open days:

Sunday 26 January, 12pm - 3pm

Saturday 15 February, 1pm - 4pm

Sunday 2 March, 10am – 1pm

(Please email (admin@antepavilion.org) for specific information)

There is no need to book an attendance at open days but registering an interest in the competition is recommended so that those planning to enter can be circulated with updates.

Questions from entrants

Questions from entrants may be emailed to admin@antepavilion.org. Answers will be posted openly on the FAQ page.

Further Reading

A resource pack with specifications, drawings, photos, and history of the site and its surroundings will be uploaded shortly.