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.

Click Conflicts of Interest in the review screen. The button carries a count of what you have already declared.
In the Conflict of Interest Management dialog, search for the artist by name or email.
Select them. You are shown a confirmation that their submissions will be hidden from your review queue.
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.

Your progress adjusts to match. The conflicted work is not counted as something you owe, so you can still reach 100 percent complete without it. Nothing suggests to the organizer that you are behind.

The work is still scored, by the other jurors on the panel. Artists are never told that a conflict was declared, or by whom, or why. Your declaration is visible to the organizers only, not to other jurors and not to the public.

Timing

Declare before you score where you can. A declaration removes work from your queue going forward; it does not retract a score you have already given, and unpicking that takes the organizer manual work.

If you realize late that you scored someone you know, tell the organizer directly rather than only declaring in the app. They can decide whether the score stands.

Your own submissions

If you entered the call you are jurying, you never need to do anything about it. Your own work is kept out of your queue automatically, and any attempt to score it is refused. Organizers are also warned before they seat you, so this is a known situation rather than an awkward discovery.

If you have a question

Reply to the jury invitation email and ask the organizer before the round opens. Every organization draws the line in a slightly different place, particularly around how long ago a relationship counts, and they would far rather answer the question early than find out later.