Currently 14 active open calls open to applicants in the US, across AI, arts, film, journalism, research, tech and cross-disciplinary practice. 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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Wave Hill, in partnership with AnkhLave Arts Alliance, invites NYC-based artists who identify as BIPOC to apply for the 2027 Van Lier Fellowship as part of the 9th Annual AnkhLave Garden Project at Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center in the Bronx. The project supports artists who draw on research, scholarship and lived knowledge to present site-responsive work at the intersection of nature, culture and place, engaging with Wave Hill's plant collections, history, design and architecture. The Van Lier Fellowship (funded by the Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund through the New York Community Trust) will be awarded to two NYC-based visual artists aged 30 or younger. FELLOWSHIP: participation in the Winter Workspace residency (23 February - 18 April 2027); a $10,435 stipend including an $8,000 honorarium and transportation stipend; a solo exhibition in the Sunroom or Sun Porch (15 May - 4 July 2027); public engagement through Winter Workspace programming and a Meet the Artist program; mentorship with Wave Hill curatorial staff, working artists and arts professionals; and AnkhLave Alumni Network benefits. ELIGIBILITY: emerging artists 30 or younger (born 1997 or after) from historically underrepresented communities; live in one of the five NYC boroughs; demonstrate financial need; have completed college and not be enrolled in a degree-granting program during the residency; not represented by a commercial gallery; available for both programs; cannot have been a Van Lier Fellow elsewhere or have previously done a Winter Workspace residency or exhibited at Wave Hill or with AnkhLave. Works may not include nudity, depictions of violence or profanity. Artists may apply to only one of the two 2027 AnkhLave Garden Project opportunities. Questions: visualarts@wavehill.org with '2027 Van Lier-Ankhlave' in the subject. DEADLINE: 10 August 2026. Apply via SlideRoom.
The Wassaic Project is holding its annual Open Call for the 2027 Summer Exhibition, for artists of all mediums, including 2D work, sculpture, video, new media, site-specific installation, performance, text, poems, essays, and publication-specific work. Selected work is showcased alongside a diverse range of pieces and performances in and around historic Wassaic and Maxon Mills; the 2027 Summer Exhibition will be free and open to the public every weekend from 1 May to 12 September 2027. In an effort toward W.A.G.E. certification, all accepted artists receive a modest honorarium to participate. Artists interested in creating a site-specific installation are also eligible for an Exhibitions Fellowship to help realize their work; Fellows are offered a no-fee residency for 1-4 weeks in April or May 2027 (artists interested in making site-specific work should still apply regardless of whether they are interested in or able to be in residence). The Wassaic Project cultivates and supports community for emerging and professional contemporary artists, writers, and other creatives, with a residency program housed in historic landmark buildings that hosts 10 artists each month in the heart of a rural community. APPLICATION: requires application forms, a CV, and an artwork/portfolio; submitted via SlideRoom. Application fee: USD 25 (no participation fee or additional fees). Deadline 10 August 2026.
CPR's year-long Artist-in-Residence programme supports six New York City-based artists working across contemporary dance, performance and time-based art. The organisation values experimental approaches to content, form and aesthetics and explicitly encourages risk-taking, interdisciplinarity and the unexpected, so process-led and hard-to-categorise work is in scope rather than a liability. WHAT RESIDENTS RECEIVE: a $2,000 stipend; 20 free hours of rehearsal space plus up to 150 further subsidised hours in CPR's two studios, with priority and advance calendar access; participation in OPEN LAB (facilitated embodied workshops and feedback showings) and OPEN AiR (solo or shared presentations of current work); and access to technical equipment and production support. ELIGIBILITY: artists must be based in New York City and remain so throughout the cycle (no visa sponsorship); must have had work publicly presented before; must not have held a CPR residency in the last five years; and current undergraduates are not eligible. Individuals, companies, collaboratives and collectives may all apply, each counting as a single residency. CPR strongly encourages applications from BIPOC, LGBTQ+, immigrant and disabled artists and from artists across generations. APPLICATION: a Google Form with narrative answers on the artist's central research focus and its alignment with CPR's values; drafting answers in a separate document first is recommended. Selection is by an independent panel of artists, curators and arts leaders. Deadline: Monday 24 August 2026 at 5pm ET; late submissions are not accepted. Notifications November 2026. Questions: applications@cprnyc.org.
The Gallery at Penn College (Pennsylvania College of Technology, Williamsport, PA) invites artists to apply for solo, two-person, or group exhibitions for its 2027-28 season. All entries are juried through a blind selection process by a gallery committee of faculty, staff, K-12 art educators, and community artists; review takes place during the Fall semester and artists receive notification in January. PROVIDED: housing, meals, a solo exhibition honorarium, and a shipping and travel stipend. Promotional support includes an annual gallery catalog, postcards, press releases, and web and social media. THE SPACE: the Gallery is 3,000 square feet with 82-250 running feet of linear wall space and an 11'4" ceiling. All exhibitions are installed by Gallery staff; site-specific installations requiring artist installation need a planning document approved before scheduling. Artists must have enough work for a solo exhibition unless applying for a two-person show. ENGAGEMENT: campus visits are an important part of programming (some exhibitions are scheduled without a visit). Penn College offers a B.S. in Graphic Design with foundation courses in drawing, 2D and 3D design, visual literacy, painting, ceramics, wood sculpture, printmaking, and computer graphics; artists are encouraged to propose class-specific programs and optional community workshops. Visiting artists give a 20-30 minute gallery talk during the public reception (held Tuesdays through Thursdays). TO APPLY: 10-15 digital images of work (JPG/JPEG only, max 4 MB each), an image list with dimensions and medium, a CV, and an artist statement. For two-person or group proposals, provide details in the comments; for video work, upload a PDF with video links and details. Deadline 31 August 2026 for the 2027-28 season.
The Gallery at Penn College is accepting proposals for solo, two-person and group exhibitions in its 2027-28 season. All entries are juried through a blind selection process by a gallery committee of faculty, staff, K-12 art educators and community artists. The space is 3,000 square feet with 82 to 250 running feet of linear wall depending on configuration and a ceiling height of 11 feet 4 inches, and all exhibitions are installed by gallery staff. Site-specific installations requiring artist installation need an approved planning document first. Campus visits are a valued part of programming though some exhibitions are scheduled without one; visiting artists give a 20 to 30 minute gallery talk at the public reception, and are encouraged to propose class-specific programmes or community workshops. Promotional support includes an annual gallery catalogue, postcards, press releases and web and social coverage. Applications require 10 to 15 digital images (JPG only, max 4 MB each), an image list with dimensions and medium, a CV and an artist statement.
Supports solo, two-person and thematic group exhibitions of contemporary visual art. The Foundation explicitly prioritises artists whose work is under-recognised and whose practices are experimental or hard to categorise, which makes it a genuine route for media arts, digital culture and art-and-science exhibitions rather than a blue-chip-only fund. Grants of USD 60,000 to 100,000 cover direct exhibition costs including artist fees, new commissions, catalogue production and artist-designed public programming, but not staff salaries. Applicants may request no more than 25 percent of total direct costs. The proposal is a roughly three-page curatorial letter plus detailed direct-cost budget, organisational budget and IRS documentation. Deadlines are 1 March and 1 September annually, with notifications 1 July and 1 January. IMPORTANT: this is a postmark or email-timestamp deadline, not a portal deadline. Fiscal sponsors are explicitly not accepted; the applicant must hold its own IRS ruling letter. The six-month-to-two-year timing rule is strict, so a September 2026 application suits exhibitions programmed from mid-2027 onward.
Launched in February 2026 as an expansion of the Foundation's programme to reach organisations too small for the Exhibition Support and Multi-year strands, and it is the single most relevant new US scheme for small media-arts festivals. It funds visual arts projects with a public component, explicitly naming film festivals, exhibitions, installations, residencies and interdisciplinary collaborations. Grants are USD 20,000 to 30,000 toward direct costs. The hard gate is the USD 200,000 annual operating budget ceiling plus US 501(c)(3) status held directly by the applicant, not via a fiscal sponsor. The Foundation states it assesses creative risk-taking and the growth of participating artists rather than community impact metrics, which suits experimental sound and digital culture programming. Proposals are a maximum of three pages plus a one-year operating budget, a project budget and IRS documentation. Deadlines are 1 March (projects begin 1 July or later) and 1 September (projects begin 1 January or later). Youth-focused projects are ineligible. One project per round, and grantees must wait a year after project completion and final reporting before reapplying.
Bloedel Reserve's residency programme exists to foster creative thinking inspired by nature and to explore the connection between humans and the environment. It is open to professional and emerging artists, composers, writers, botanists, landscape architects, researchers and others working on themes of nature and human connection to it. Residents get a three-week stay at a 140-acre internationally recognised public garden and forest preserve, housed in a small home hidden in the woods off the main paths. Note for non-US applicants: the funding is structured as expense reimbursement rather than a stipend, capped at USD 1,000, which for transatlantic applicants is unlikely to cover airfare plus meals over three weeks.
The City of Moorhead is seeking proposals for an inspirational, movable public artwork to be installed at rotating locations across the city. Interactive elements are explicitly encouraged, with kinetic sculpture, digital installation and tactile elements named as examples. Strong proposals invite public participation, promote creativity and youth engagement, are safe for all members of the public, are durable enough for year-round outdoor conditions, and draw people to gather. Submissions are reviewed and ranked by the Artist Review Team, whose recommendation passes to the Art and Culture Commission and then to City Council for the final decision. Questions go to art@moorheadmn.gov. Proposals are due by 10:00am on Friday 4 September 2026.
The Erie Canal Museum, in partnership with the New York State Canal Corporation, is appointing two Erie Canal Artists-in-Residence for a one-year, year-long creative inquiry into the New York State Canal System, including the historic Erie Canal: reflecting on its past, contemplating its current condition, and considering its future. The 2027 residencies are dedicated to projects that reflect upon the Canal's physical, environmental and social condition and history, its materiality and its context, and the project must directly address the Canal. Applicants propose a specific creative visual project that must be exhibitable in a gallery setting, identify their target audiences and explain how the work will be shared with them and with the public at large. Studies of Canal communities are encouraged, but the Canal and its context must be central. Projects may focus on key areas or on the entire system, and applicants are told to weigh that scale: 524 miles of navigable waterways and 365 miles of multi-use trails. ELIGIBILITY: all artists are encouraged to apply, and special consideration goes to artists with ancestral ties to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and/or the Mohican Nation and to artists who have lived or worked in Canal communities. Only individual artists or artist collectives may apply; artists representing nonprofit or for-profit organisations may not. Artists must be 18 or older and may not be currently enrolled in school full time. For collectives, only one USD 10,000 stipend is awarded to the group. APPLICATION: a statement of interest and proposal (up to 500 words) covering why the residency interests you, your proposed project and how it meets the three residency goals (engage with the Canal, adjacent Canalway Trails, Canal Corp. and Museum staff, Canal facilities, communities and visitors; reflect directly on the Canal's physical, environmental and social condition and history; consider a fuller, more complete account of the Canal's past, present and future), which geographic section you will focus on, how you would share work publicly during the residency, your proposed final project, and how your previous work and public engagement relate; an artist's statement (up to 300 words); a resume or CV (max three pages); two professional references with phone and email; and ten examples of recent work (written work limited to three pages each) with a list giving title, date, materials and size plus short descriptions. EVALUATION covers clarity and relevance of the proposal, the scope, feasibility and clarity of the plan to reach the intended audience, the plan for public engagement including at least one public-facing event during the residency, a final project usable in an exhibit and catalogue, and the quality and relevance of prior work. Applications are reviewed by a panel of Erie Canal Museum and Canal Corporation representatives plus invited arts professionals (the 2026 panel included Elizabeth Dubben of Collar Works, artist and educator Dennis RedMoon Darkeem, and Garth Johnson, Curator of Ceramics at the Everson Museum of Art); finalists interview with the panel. SUBMIT application packages as PDFs by email to Natalie Stetson, Executive Director, at employment@eriecanalmuseum.org with 'Erie Canal Artist-in-Residence' in the subject line, by 11:59 pm on Sunday 6 September 2026. The RFP is at eriecanalmuseum.org/about/careers/.
Funds US organisations to present curator-led contemporary visual art exhibitions and projects that originated elsewhere, on condition the presenting institution meaningfully adapts the project to its own context. Teiger's remit covers group exhibitions, single-artist surveys, participatory and community-engaged projects, digital exhibitions, and live and virtual performance, making it one of very few US funders that will directly finance media-art and performance programming at organisational level. Requests are fixed at USD 50,000 or USD 75,000 with up to 30 percent for indirect costs, and there is no minimum organisation budget size, with smaller organisations explicitly favoured for infrastructure support. Hosting deadlines are quarterly: 9 September 2026 and 9 December 2026, both 17:00 ET, each mapped to a defined project-opening window roughly a year out. IMPORTANT: re-presenting a touring project unchanged is explicitly not competitive; the curatorial adaptation is the substance of the application. US 501(c)(3) status is required and the fund is not open to individuals or non-US organisations. Teiger's larger biennial Call for Proposals is not running in 2026 and next opens in autumn 2026 with an early-2027 deadline.
The QM-Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists selects two emerging visual artists living in New York City for its 2027-2028 cohort. Each fellow receives a $20,000 award, professional development consultations, mentorship from Queens Museum staff and an established New York-based artist, and a solo exhibition at the Queens Museum in 2028, with curatorial support across a full year of project development. Aimed at early-career visual artists (roughly two to ten years of professional practice) who have a consistent practice and developing public profile but have not yet reached major institutional recognition. ELIGIBILITY: must currently reside in one of NYC's five boroughs and maintain residency through the fellowship; artists enrolled in degree-granting programs are not eligible; review the detailed criteria on exhibition history, previous grants and years of practice. Supported by the Jerome Foundation. Apply via the Queens Museum fellowship program page. Deadline: 28 September 2026, 11:59 PM EST.
The Kala Fellowship Program supports international, national, and local artists producing innovative work in and across multiple media, with an emphasis on Kala's specialized printmaking, photography, and digital media equipment. The institute supports up to 6 artists per cycle with a USD 3,000 stipend, 24/7 access to its Berkeley facilities for 1 to 9 months, one month of housing for artists based outside the 9 Bay Area counties, a Kala class or workshop, and a culminating group show in the Kala Gallery. Applications are submitted through kala.slideroom.com and require a statement of interest, an artist CV, documentation of 5 to 10 recent works, and two references. Artists enrolled in a degree-granting program during the fellowship period are not eligible. The application opens in December with no fee through January 15, after which a USD 25 application fee applies through the March 1 deadline.
Marfa Open runs a gallery, an annual art festival (6th edition), and a 3-4 week live-in residency in its gallery space that ends in an exhibition; it has also mounted international shows. Historically free to propose and open to everyone including international artists. NOTE: there is no formal application portal; intake is by direct contact via the website (the old marfaopen.org application site is dead; the live site is marfaopen.art).