It’s Friday night and I just submitted a proposal for a mentorship and exhibition opportunity with the Forecast Platform in Berlin. I should probably be out celebrating but I wanted to get some thoughts down while they’re still fresh.

I won’t lie: the Forecast proposal was a rigorous exercise that took me much longer than expected. But it really pushed me to reflect on the concepts behind the Movement project I’m working on and what I want to communicate with others about the ideas I’m exploring.

Over the years, I’ve spent a fair amount of time writing proposals, applying for exhibitions, and submitting photographs here and there. It’s time-consuming and often winds up being a lot of ‘work for nothing.’ The acceptance rate is typically low, at least in my case. (I wrote a blog about that in 2018 where I share some thoughts on navigating the relationship between acceptance and rejection).

While proposals take a lot of time, and can often be fruitless, I think it’s good to reframe the process in order to see the value that it brings. Even if my proposal isn’t accepted, and I don’t get to take my ideas to Berlin, I won’t consider the hours at my laptop this week as ‘work for nothing.’ Going though the motions with the Forecast application has helped me collate my thoughts. For the past few months I’ve been photographing with people and exploring perspectives on movement. I’ve got the general idea of one day putting on an exhibition, but I haven’t committed to when exactly that day will happen.

I realise it’s easy to carry a jumble of ideas around with a general focus. What’s more difficult is honing in on the core concept and main areas of exploration, and then communicating those in a clear way so that people understand why they should be interested in your work. Writing this proposal helped me move from the general idea of “I’ll do an exhibition” to a more concrete goal of “I’ll do an exhibition that incorporates x, y, z.” Listing the materials required and putting down a timeline for executing the vision felt good. It helped me visualise how the exhibition could look.

Most importantly, writing the proposal prompted me to go deeper into why I want to do this project. It made me think on why I’m so fascinated with the human potential for movement and the connections between movement and conceptions of self. Writing this all down made me realise that I’m deeper into the conceptualisation process than I realised. I just needed to get things down in a structured way.

So, I may or may not get good news on the Forecast proposal. That depends on the selection committee. But in the end the hours spent this week thinking, writing, and pulling together thoughts on a project that’s important to me can only be seen as a valuable use of time.

What’s your experience with proposals? Let me know in the comments.