Declaring Conflicts of Interest as a Juror

Somewhere in the pool you are about to score is work by someone you know. Declaring that relationship takes a few seconds and removes their work from your queue, so nobody has to wonder afterwards whether your judgement was clean. This guide covers what counts as a conflict, how to declare one, and what happens next.

What counts as a conflict

A conflict exists when your relationship with an artist could influence your scoring, in either direction. The common ones:

• Personal. Family, a partner, a close friend.
• Professional. A current or former colleague, collaborator, student, teacher, or an artist you represent.
• Financial. You own their work, or you stand to gain or lose from their result.
• Institutional. They are affiliated with your gallery, school or employer.

Two things that are not conflicts: strongly disliking someone's work, which is ordinary aesthetic judgement and the reason panels have several people on them, and another juror's relationship with an artist, which is theirs to declare.

If you are unsure, declare it. Over-disclosing costs the organizer one entry from your queue. Under-disclosing costs them the credibility of the result.

Declare a conflict

You can declare at any point while the round is open.

1. Click Conflicts of Interest in the review screen. The button carries a count of what you have already declared.
2. In the Conflict of Interest Management dialog, search for the artist by name or email.
3. Select them. You are shown a confirmation that their submissions will be hidden from your review queue.
4. Add a Reason (optional) if it would help the organizer, then click Declare Conflict.

Your declarations are listed under Current Conflicts, and you can remove one you made yourself if you picked the wrong person.

On a blind call

If the call uses blind review you will not see artist names, so there is nothing to search for. The dialog tells you to contact the organizer, who records the conflict for you.

This is worth knowing before you start. On a blind call you are more likely to recognize a hand or a subject than a name, so if a piece feels familiar, tell the organizer rather than trying to score around it. See Blind Jurying and Automatic Redaction.

What happens after you declare

That artist's submissions disappear from your queue straight away. You cannot open them, score them, or read notes on them.