Writing a cover (up) letter
If you would like to request a workshop, email us at theironingboarddd@gmail.com
Borrowing from our experience in improv, scriptwriting and, of course, application-sending, we have developed a workshop in which participants experience the mock version of an application process. Through this one-day journey, participants practice their writing as much as their career-realisation skills, while also letting go of the so-called impostor syndrome that is often experienced in the creative field.
We have set up this workshop thanks to the support of WORM Rotterdam, where we were able to implement it on location. Following the encouraging feedback we have received from the workshop participants, we are convinced that this format can offer a valuable set of tools to graduating students.
When writing a cover letter for a grant application, a job vacancy in a cultural institution, or a spot in a residency, we signify our interest, excitement and, ultimately, our validity for said position. Behind the overly flattering tone, the listing of knowledge and skills, and the expression of intrinsic motivation is usually the attempt to cover up the things that we assume should not be disclosed to the other party.
Our understanding is that cover letters —as much as the other exchanges that happen within an application process— contain a great deal of communicative conventions, and that these conventions could also be observed as storytelling tropes and narrative devices with which we create an image about ourselves, and our interest towards a certain institution, vacancy or programme. ‘Who we are’ and ‘what we work on’ aligns with what we present in our application, yet there is always something that evades that overlap, an area where one can speculate and make space for diverse narratives. Once we acknowledge the use of fiction in these letters, we reclaim the power to play with how we perceive our practice, ultimately being able to draft an application that is uniquely ours.
WORM, other locations
Rotterdam, Netherlands
2023—ongoing
If you would like to request a workshop, email us at theironingboarddd@gmail.com
Borrowing from our experience in improv, scriptwriting and, of course, application-sending, we have developed a workshop in which participants experience the mock version of an application process. Through this one-day journey, participants practice their writing as much as their career-realisation skills, while also letting go of the so-called impostor syndrome that is often experienced in the creative field.
We have set up this workshop thanks to the support of WORM Rotterdam, where we were able to implement it on location. Following the encouraging feedback we have received from the workshop participants, we are convinced that this format can offer a valuable set of tools to graduating students.
When writing a cover letter for a grant application, a job vacancy in a cultural institution, or a spot in a residency, we signify our interest, excitement and, ultimately, our validity for said position. Behind the overly flattering tone, the listing of knowledge and skills, and the expression of intrinsic motivation is usually the attempt to cover up the things that we assume should not be disclosed to the other party.
Our understanding is that cover letters —as much as the other exchanges that happen within an application process— contain a great deal of communicative conventions, and that these conventions could also be observed as storytelling tropes and narrative devices with which we create an image about ourselves, and our interest towards a certain institution, vacancy or programme. ‘Who we are’ and ‘what we work on’ aligns with what we present in our application, yet there is always something that evades that overlap, an area where one can speculate and make space for diverse narratives. Once we acknowledge the use of fiction in these letters, we reclaim the power to play with how we perceive our practice, ultimately being able to draft an application that is uniquely ours.
WORM, other locations
Rotterdam, Netherlands
2023—ongoing
