Currently 8 active visual and media arts grants, fellowships and residencies open to applicants in Worldwide. Hand-curated and updated weekly. Almost every entry is funded; a few notable unpaid open calls and festival submissions are included as clearly flagged exceptions. Browse the list below, or use the interactive desk for filtering and shortlisting.
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The Fondazione Prada Film Fund is an annual initiative supporting independent cinema, with an annual endowment of EUR 1.5 million backing up to 14 feature film projects across development, production, and post-production. The Fund imposes NO restrictions on geography, theme, genre, or language and does not participate as a co-producer, guaranteeing complete artistic freedom to filmmakers. It supports both established authors and new talents, as well as research projects. WHICH TRACKS ARE STILL OPEN: the 2026 call opened 30 June 2026 and runs on two separate deadlines. The projects-in-production track has already CLOSED (6 August 2026). Development and post-production remain open to 10 September 2026, which is the deadline this card now tracks. Post-production applicants can keep working after submitting: a rough cut may be supplied up to 20 November 2026. SELECTION is based exclusively on quality, originality, vision, and the strength and reliability of the applicant structure; projects are evaluated by independent readers and external consultants, with final selection and grant amounts determined by a committee appointed by Fondazione Prada and composed of prominent figures from cinema and culture. No fixed per-stage grant bands are published, so the committee sets each award. ELIGIBILITY: applications may be submitted only by a production company involved in the project, and that company remains solely responsible for meeting all requirements and conditions; obligations of selected beneficiaries are governed by a contract with Fondazione Prada. Open worldwide, with no geographic restriction at all. PHISHING WARNING FROM THE FUNDER: all official communications about the Film Fund come only from addresses in the fondazioneprada.org domain. Treat anything from another domain as a probable fraud or phishing attempt and verify before responding. The second edition's selected projects are announced February 2027. Application documents are on the Fondazione Prada Film Fund page; questions to filmfund@fondazioneprada.org.
White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney commissions an emerging artist or designer to create a short digital animation responding to its Generation Xi exhibition, which looks at China's youth amid the AI, robotics and EV revolution, and to the New Ugly digital design aesthetic. The commissioned work (up to 20 seconds, minimum 1280x720 at 16:9, max 150MB, including the exhibition title in English and Mandarin) is displayed for five months on the gallery's website landing page and enters the permanent WRG Digital Archive. SUPPORT: AUD 2,000 artist fee (split equally if a collaborative group) plus mentorship from creative agency Spring in Alaska during the development period (28 September - 2 November 2026). ELIGIBILITY: open internationally to applicants 18+ within the first 10 years of their artistic or design practice who are not represented by a commercial gallery or design agency and not employed by a design company; students and collectives welcome. Free to enter. Deadline: 14 September 2026, 5pm AEST.
This is Gender, the photography and visual culture platform run by Global 50/50, is launching its inaugural Regional Curatorial Fellows Programme for early-career curators and cultural practitioners working across photography, visual culture and gender justice. The premise: images shape how gender, power and social realities are understood, feeding public debate, cultural memory, research, advocacy and policy, yet the communities and visual practices that should inform those narratives stay underrepresented in the institutions that circulate them. The programme's argument is that diversifying who makes images is not enough, and that it also matters who selects, contextualises, writes about, commissions and circulates them. For the first time, This is Gender is embedding regional curators directly inside its global photography competition, which has run six cycles and receives thousands of submissions a year. WHAT THE FELLOWSHIP INVOLVES: working inside the competition and seeing first-hand how a major platform discovers, reviews and champions new work; shaping curatorial decisions by bringing regional knowledge and cultural insight into the selection and interpretation of work; contributing to public-facing projects including exhibitions, editorial outputs and digital storytelling while developing your own writing, framing and curatorial voice; direct engagement with international judges, curators, artists, editors and cultural practitioners; and building a network across an international cohort of peers. WHO SHOULD APPLY: curators, critics, writers, researchers, artistic directors, photographers, organisers and cultural practitioners from global majority countries and historically underrepresented communities. Early-career practitioners and recent graduates are strongly encouraged, and a formal curatorial title is not required. HOW TO APPLY: read the full role description and FAQs on the fellowship page and submit the online application form; the organisers offer the application in alternative formats and are open to a conversation before applying. Applications close 22 September 2026.
A fully funded art-science residency from Ars Electronica and Ceske Budejovice, European Capital of Culture 2028, exploring how art and science can collaborate on urgent environmental challenges: climate emergence, sustainable agriculture, geoengineering, permaculture, water resource management, and the broader ecological impacts on local communities. Selected residents work in direct collaboration with local scientists in Ceske Budejovice. WHO CAN APPLY: artists, designers, creatives and artist collectives with more than 5 years of professional creative practice and documented interdisciplinary work; experience in community engagement and science collaborations is essential; applicants must be 18+, of any nationality, and legally eligible to work and travel in the EU. WHAT YOU GET: a EUR 24,000 package (EUR 6,000 artist fee, up to EUR 15,000 production, up to EUR 3,000 travel and subsistence) plus one month of housing covered separately; two winners are selected. STRUCTURE: the residency runs January 2027 to April 2028, with a required on-site stay of up to one month in February/March 2027, an optional stay in August/September 2027, and a March 2028 stay for festival installation, exhibition and deinstallation. HOW TO APPLY: online form with project title, a written proposal of max 250 words, a scientific direction statement (max 100 words), artistic vision (max 100 words), community connection plan (max 100 words), a super short pitch (3 to 30 words), 3 to 7 images, an optional 1-minute video, a portfolio link and contact information. Two-round selection (online application then interview); winners notified by November 2026. Deadline 28 September 2026 at midnight CET.
NEXT ART AI is an open AI art competition run by the HOBAN Cultural Foundation, welcoming participants of all backgrounds regardless of career, nationality or age, and framed as a way to reflect on the future of AI art through new modes of expression and artistic experimentation. TWO CATEGORIES: AI IMAGE ART, for works in a single-image format at 150dpi or higher, submitted as JPG, JPEG, PNG or BMP up to 10MB; and AI VIDEO ART, open to a wide range of video formats including animation, motion graphics and live-action footage enhanced or transformed using AI, at 1080p or higher, under one minute, 30 or 60fps recommended, stereo 48kHz audio recommended, as mp4 (h.264) or mov. Video entries are submitted as a URL via YouTube, Vimeo, Dropbox or OneDrive, or an alternative platform if those are restricted in your region; links that are inaccessible due to privacy settings may be excluded from judging. WHO CAN ENTER: individuals or teams of up to three including the representative, though you may not submit both as an individual and as part of a team. Team representatives create the account in their own name and all members submit a consent form for personal data. Applicants under 19 need a guardian's signed consent. One work may be submitted per category. RULES ON AI AND ASSETS: work must be original and created by the applicant or team, and must be image or video art created using generative AI platforms. Works that have previously won an award in another competition are not eligible. Free or paid external assets, game engines, AI frameworks, open-source tools and editing software may be used freely, but applicants must hold licences permitting commercial use for every element, and work infringing third-party rights is excluded. Even where external assets and editing software are used, the creative process must involve AI, whether AI-assisted direction, transformation, generation or other AI-based processes, and the choice of AI tools, the scope and method of their use, and the prompts themselves are all weighed in evaluating the creative use of AI. TIMELINE: applications open 1 September 2026 and close 30 September 2026 at 11:59pm KST, preliminary round early October, final round late October, announcement and ceremony early November, exhibition late November 2026. Organised and hosted by the HOBAN Cultural Foundation, sponsored by HOBAN Group, with Seoul Shinmun and EBN as media partners. Details and schedule are subject to change at the organiser's discretion.
Long-running post-production grant from Frameline, the San Francisco organisation behind the world's longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival, for films that represent and reflect LGBTQ+ life in all its complexity and richness. Grants run up to USD 5,000, typically USD 1,000 to 5,000, and the jury may recommend more or less than that range. WHAT IT COVERS: any post-production cost, explicitly including editing, special effects and graphics, music licensing, photo licensing, and, notably, closed captioning and audio description, so accessibility work is fundable rather than an afterthought. STAGE GATE, the thing that disqualifies most applicants: your project must be at least 90 percent complete with a rough cut available, and in or about to enter post-production. Work still in development or mid-production is not eligible. WHO AND WHAT: all formats, lengths, genres and nationalities are welcome, spanning documentary, narrative, experimental, animated and episodic work, so long as the film is about LGBTQ+ people and their communities. Directors must have creative and financial control of the project. NO APPLICATION FEE, which is worth flagging given how many completion funds charge one. TIMING: the submission window opens 31 August 2026 and closes 9 October 2026, with decisions in January 2027. The 2026 cycle's grantees have already been announced ahead of Frameline's 50th festival, so this is the next round.
Async Museum is an independent digital space dedicated to web art with a distinctive point of view, existing to discover artists who use the web as their primary medium and to recognise their work as a new aesthetic. Its core philosophy is that the web browser is a twenty-first century canvas. Async Museum is officially seeking submissions of web-based artworks, welcoming both established practitioners and emerging voices who are pushing the boundaries of what the next generation of art can be. NOTE: this is an exhibition opportunity for web-based art rather than a paid grant; no artist fee is stated. To share your practice and submit your work, visit https://asyncmuseum.com/submit. Deadline: 1 December 2026.
apexart's Open Calls turn a curatorial idea into a funded apexart exhibition, selected by a crowdsourced international jury of more than 600 people in 70 countries. WHO CAN SUBMIT: anyone, from anywhere, with no fees at any level: trained and student curators, artists, writers and creative people regardless of experience, background or location. HOW: a 500-word proposal for a focused, idea-driven, original group exhibition, submitted through the online form during the proposal window. TWO ANNUAL WINDOWS: every October for exhibitions in apexart's NYC space, and every February (to early March) for exhibitions taking place anywhere in the world except NYC; for the international call you must propose a location you have actually visited, with the specific venue settled after selection. SELECTION: jurors vote anonymously online (each proposal gets an equal number of views, submitter names hidden); proposals are judged on the strength of the idea and how well it is communicated, not on connections or CV. WHAT WINNERS GET: a USD 10,000 budget (USD 8,000 for expenses, up to USD 2,000 curator honorarium, plus up to USD 1,000 venue-rental match outside NYC), with apexart covering insurance, publicity, the printed brochure, the opening reception and most logistics including loan agreements and shipping, and staff working closely with the guest curator. Winning proposals become part of apexart's next exhibition season. Check the site for the current window's exact dates; submission forms only go live during the proposal periods.