Open Call for Nominations: Maker behind the Maker Award 2024

This Open Call is closed.

On Thursday 30 May, we launch the open call for the fourth edition of the Maker Behind the Maker Award!

The Maker behind the Maker Award honors people whose impeccable craftsmanship and supportive collaboration have been indispensable for a visual artist to best materialize their work. The award is created by Kunstinstituut Melly in collaboration with the Mondriaan Fund, a public fund for visual art and cultural heritage in the Netherlands.

Visual artists with an experience of more than five years of creating artworks and projects are invited to nominate one or more people for this award. Nominations can only be made for a craftsperson living in The Netherlands. The nomination form consists of presenting the craftsperson nominated, by writing a brief statement explaining why or how that person was important in the development of one or several artworks or projects.

The closing date for submitting nominations was 24 June 2024.

For the purpose of this award, the craft can range from manual to intellectual expertise. A craftsperson for a visual artist can for example be a fabricator, a technician, an interpreter, an editor, or someone with certain expertise which helps make artworks or projects come into fruition. The nominated person can either work independently or in a company/institution; the person may also be a visual artist; the person could be a one-time hire or a long-standing collaborator. Nominators can present more than one nominee, and each nomination has to be presented in an individual form.

This is the fourth iteration of the Maker Behind the Maker Award. In 2021, the award was presented to Charly van Rest, who has provided or created the sound and music for films and exhibitions by many artists and institutions over the years. Struktuur 68, a studio for ceramics, was presented the award in 2022, for their technical support of many artists. In 2023, it was awarded to Karen Zeedijk, an expert in tufting. She creates textile pieces in collaboration with artists, pushing the craft to its limits throughout the making process.

The nominations review and recipient selection are made by a three-member external jury convened in July 2024 by Kunstinstituut Melly. The winner of the Maker behind the Maker Award receives a cash gift of €5.000.