A selection of international open calls and opportunities for contemporary art related competitions, prizes, exhibitions, awards, proposals, and grants for artists, writers and curators.
This is an edited listing. We update this feature once a week on Fridays from a selection of submissions, newsletters, magazines and blogs. Our editorial team of practicing artists only select opportunities they feel offer a clear benefit to the submitting artists. To recommend an opportunity for listing, please fill in the form in the sidebar. We email around 19,500 art practitioners weekly with selected opportunities.
Exhibition Opportunity
Shelter Exhibition
In collaboration with Shelter, The Take Courage Gallery is giving artists a platform to exhibit work for free whilst engaging with a worthy charity.
Shelter: To End Homelessness
Compassion for humanity is, fundamentally, an essential part of existence. Under this principle, Shelter devote themselves to reforming social-view and engaging in the socio-politics; campaigning for housing as a human-right. This alleviation deserves a representative - how can your art fund this alleviation of the housing crisis?
Deadline 13 June 2018
Take Courage Gallery
Twitter: @gallery_courage
Facebook: @thetakecouragegallery
https://www.facebook.com/events/173145933521367/?active_tab=about
Artist in Residence
Culture LAB: Arts in the community - mixed media residency
Week-long, mixed media residency working in partnership with METAL at Ipswich County Library from Monday 30 July – Friday 3 August 2018.
As part of Year 1 of the Suffolk Libraries Arts Programme, we are inviting artists to explore the role of the arts in the community providing the opportunity to explore ideas and develop their practice, with the opportunity to bid into a commissioning pot to pilot their projects from September 2018.
Deadline 15 June 2018
Suffolk Libraries
Twitter: @suffolklibrary
Facebook: @SuffolkLibraries
www.suffolklibraries.co.uk
Commission
LGBTQIA+ Mural Artist Commission
We're looking for an early career visual artist that identifies as LGBTQIA+ to give our wall a little sprucing up for Pride Month. Your work must be able to fill a large wall space, and be eye catching, as every person who passes through our doors will see it. This opportunity is paid.
Your work must be able to fill a large wall space, and be eye catching, as every person who passes through our doors will see it. This opportunity is paid.
Beyond that, there's no criteria. Whatever medium, style and idea that you have is totally welcome, and we're excited to see what you come up with.
In the past, we've hosted artists such as Zarah Hussain, Joshua Armitage & Kerris Knight, and we're eager to create a partnership with someone new.
Please apply via this form by 15th June at 12pm. Late submissions will not be considered. Please be free to create your mural in the first week of July.
Deadline 15 June 2018
Theatre Deli
Twitter: @theatredeli
Facebook: @theatredeli
www.theatredeli.co.uk
Prizes and Awards
TESLA Award 2018
TESLA Award is a new competition focusing on new and progressive art forms in the field of transdisciplinary or intermedia art. This year TESLA partners with Artbat Festival in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Bellastock from Paris, to support two public space works to be installed in Almaty. TESLA 2018 is looking for innovative public space projects on the topic of Water stream, that use water as a structural element or that reflect on the importance of water in cities. The artworks will be installed in public spaces near the water structures or in them (for example in the water streams, lakes, etc.) if appropriate. Winning proposals will be awarded with a 4000,00 eur production grant, and travel to Almaty Artbat Fest.
Deadline 20 June 2018
MoTA - Museum of Transitory Art
Twitter: @motamuseum
Facebook: @motamuseum
www.tesla.motamuseum.com
Artist in Residence
Swiss Church in London: August Artist Residency
This opportunity will enable a Swiss or Swiss educated artist living in the UK or Switzerland to undertake a fully funded residency at the Swiss Church in London from 6 - 26 August 2018 (3 weeks). The selected artist will be given 24-hour access to the Church’s unique heritage-listed building in Covent Garden, and a work space on the third floor of the building.
The residency is designed for self-led professional development, and experimentation, and would suit an artist who works site-specifically, or whose practice engages with sound, light, theology, spirituality or community engagement. It offers artists a period of time to work in quiet and solitude, as well as the freedom to experiment in a large, highly resonant space.
Deadline 20 June 2018
Swiss Church in London
Twitter: @SwissChurchLond
Facebook: @swisschurchlondon
www.swisschurchlondon.org.uk
Grant
Biennialization, Biennialization, Biennialization: The Bangkok Syndrome
The biennial art exhibition has become an expected formula for garnering international attention to a contemporary art scene, though it often involves a myriad of other intentions and results, intended or not. Biennialization, Biennialization, Biennialization: The Bangkok Syndrome is a two-day symposium focusing on current and historical trends in the increasingly ubiquitous biennial format. Taking place on August the 11th and 12th, in Bangkok, Thailand, where three separate large-scale bi-annual exhibitions are to be inaugurated in this same year: the Bangkok Biennial, the Bangkok Art Biennale and the Thailand Biennale.
Deadline 22 June 2018
Bangkok Biennial
Facebook: BangkokBiennial
www.bangkokbiennial.com
Artist in Residence
present_continuous // OPEN CALL for artist residency in Turin
Call for two residencies/research grants for contemporary artists aimed at studying a collection of prints from the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria in Turin. We want drawing attention to archives and inert collections in our country, acknowledging how the visual languages of contemporary art can reinterpret and re-enact narratives.
Deadline 24 June 2018
Arteco
Twitter: @ArtecoTorino
Facebook: artecotorino
www.associazionearteco.it
Artist in Residence
Artist - Sculptor - Photographer for Book/Film cover/photographs and sculpture
Lux Lung, a writer is looking to commission an artist, a photographer and a sculptor to create a book cover, photographs and sculptures for her books/film that are being published, made into a short film and shown at BAFTA next year. All abilities welcome. Must be incredibly innovative and bring something new and different. Artists names will be credited in the books and film and promoted at BAFTA and in all promotional material. Lux is looking for artists that will stay for the duration of her work, that is 10 books over a number of years.
Deadline 30 June 2018
Lux Lung
LuxembourgLung@virginmedia.com
Artist in Residence
Songkhla Art Residency in Thailand
We are offering four positions as artist-in-residence between November 2018 and January 2019. The residencies are from 4 weeks to 8 weeks in length. We provide each artist a free, private room with air-conditioning, a free studio / working space, a free exhibition space, a food stipend of 360 Baht per day, and 5000 Baht for incidentals. We also provide each artist an English-speaking support team, to help those who want Thai language support. The residency does not cover travel costs or medical insurance. We favor artists who want to engage with our local community, want to learn about Songkhla’s local culture and reflect this back in their art, and can create art which captures the imagination of the local community.
Deadline 1 July 2018
Songkhla Heritage Trust & OXLAEY
@oxlaey
@oxlaey
www.oxlaey.com
Artist in Residence
»Refiguring the Feminist Future« Open call for the web residencies
»This is a call for ›the female future‹. The feminism that is more than women. Its addressed to artists, activists, poets, writers, feminists and dreamers for challenging existing histories and speculative futures through storytelling and counter narrative imagining using web as their platform. It’s a call that asks: what does ›the future is female‹ actually look like? It’s a call for crafting of the future that truly belongs to us.«
All types of work are accepted.
Deadline 2 July 2018
Akademie Schloss Solitude
Twitter: @solitudenetwork
Facebook: @Akademie.Solitude
www.webresidencies-solitude-zkm.com
Fellowship
The Collective Studio Graduate Programme
We are looking for applications for The Collective Studio 2018-19, a 9 month development programme for early-career and/or recent graduate artists and creative practitioners. The Collective Studio provides practitioners with affordable studios & workspace, access to peer- led training and development events, mentoring and a series of professional creative opportunities to develop and challenge practice outside of an institutional framework and generate resilient approaches to creative practice.
Deadline 2 July 2018
The NewBridge Project
Twitter: @N_B_Project
Facebook: @thenewbridgeproject
www.thenewbridgeproject.com
Competition
Open Call POOL 18
The 12th edition of POOL will present a selection of fascinating dance film productions from all over the world, which makes the event a meeting place for creative people involved in the fields of dance, film, fashion and advertisement. POOL focuses on the intense interplay between dance and the techniques of film, exploring the possibilites and boundaries of the art form.
All dancers, choreographers, filmmakers and artists are invited to apply with dance short films and dance animations. 
Films should not be longer than 30 minutes and also not a pure documentation of a dance piece.
Deadline 2 July 2018
DOCK11
Facebook: @DOCK11 @POOL
www.pool-festival.de
Prizes and Awards
Funding for Socially Engaged Art
New Funding Opportunities for Socially Engaged Art, Axisweb
We are happy to announce several new opportunities for those working in the field of socially engaged art.
These include:
Art Writing Bursaries
Artist-Run Workshop Commissions
Get-Together Funding
Artist Commission
All the opportunities are well paid, flexible and a response to current issues facing artists and practitioners working in this way.
Deadline 3 July 2018
Axisweb
Twitter: @axisweb
Facebook: @axisweb.org
www.axisweb.org
Exhibition Opportunity
CultRise Artist Call
The CultRise association is an ecosystem of young talents, artists and creative minds that live art and creation as a daily necessity.
Artists using all mediums are invited to submit their work to the Open Call. Three finalists of the Open Call will participate in the upcoming CultRise exhibition and enter CultRise permanent collection.
Deadline 7 July 2018
CultRise
Twitter: @CultRise
Facebook: @CultRise
www.cultrise.com
Artist in Residence
Glyndebourne Tour Art Competition now accepting entries
The latest Glyndebourne Tour Art Competition invites emerging artists of all ages (16+) to submit an artwork based on the theme of "Love and Money".
Love and Money are frequently at the heart of the action in opera, including the two works being staged for Glyndebourne Tour 2018. Verdi’s La traviata sees Violetta sell all her possessions in order to live with her true love Alfredo, while Massenet’s Cendrillon is based on the rags to riches love story of the poor Cinderella, swept off her feet by the dashing (and rich) Prince.
The winning artwork will feature on the cover of 10,000 copies of the Glyndebourne Tour Programme and appear in an exhibition at Glyndebourne this autumn. Artists are invited to submit paintings, drawings, original prints, mixed media, photography and digital pieces (no video or sculpture). Submissions must work both as printed artwork for the programme cover and as an exhibition piece. All shortlisted entrants will also win two free tickets.
Deadline 6 July 2018
The Glyndebourne Tour: 12 October – 1 December 2018
@glyndebourne
www.glyndebourne.com/your-visit/at-glyndebourne/art-and-sculpture/tour-art-competition-2018-submit-your-application/
Exhibition Opportunity
UKYA City Takeover: Nottingham 2019
UKYA City Takeover: Nottingham 2019 will span the city, immersing visitors in an array of extraordinary, innovative and contemporary work from over 200 artists from three continents. Visual arts, performance, music and words will animate cultural spaces and unusual places across Nottingham. DEADLINE: Monday 9 July 5pm UK Young Artists is seeking submissions for a week-long ‘City Takeover’ in Nottingham. The call is open to artists aged 18-30 working in the following artforms: Applied Art Design Digital Art Literature Music Performance Visual Arts Cross art form collaborations and interdisciplinary works are also welcomed.
Deadline 9 July 2018
UK Young Artists
Twitter: @ukyoungartists
Facebook: @ukyoungartists
www.ukyoungartists.co.uk
Competition
Open Call Bucharest International Dance Film Festival
Bucharest International Dance Film Festival (6-9 September 2018) invites film directors, choreographers and other artist to submit their dance films to the fourth edition of BIDFF. The competition is open for fiction short dance films, documentaries and animations around the world, with a prize pool of 3000 euro. BIDFF can also screen off competition feature films and long documentaries.
Deadline 10 July 2018
Bucharest International Dance Film Festival
Facebook: bucharestinternationaldancefilmfestival
www.bidff.ro
Exhibition Opportunity
International Open Call for Artists - lmdp Festival of Theatre, Art, New technologies 2018
LMDP Festival is the first of this kind in the whole Italy. Its aim is to promote the interrelation between artistic and technological languages. Italian and International artists are invited to submit their projects about “Interaction between arts, theatre and technology”. Eligible projects: theatrical plays, performances. Installations that explore and realize the interaction between artwork, exhibition space and observers with the contribution of technology. The application must contain:
• Artist's CV and biography;
• Detailed description of the project (in PDF - English or Italian language);
• Technical rider;
• Selection of max 5 photos;
• Link audio / video material (Vimeo or Youtube).
Deadline 15 July 2018
KyberTeatro
Twitter: @KyberTeatro
Facebook: @kyberteatro
www.kyberteatro.it
Exhibition Opportunity
The Essential - Open Call for Artists
Photographers and Visual and Digital artists are invited to submit their work responding to the theme of this year's exhibition - The Essential. The selected works will constitute the international collective exhibition The Essential that will take place in November 2018 in Rome.
Submitted works should offer an original view on the theme, and restrain from conventional approach to the subject including references to lifestyles based on consumerist logics. The artists are encouraged to reflect on the most significant values of existence, whether individual and/or universal.
Deadline 15 July 2018
Artist in Residence
La Wayaka Current Residency
La Wayaka Current, artist-led initiative will offer a fully funded place on one of our our upcoming expeditions into one of the richest biomes on our planet located in Central America. This is an opportunity for an artist to research + develop a new site-responsive project through our program at Tropic 08 º N, an isolated base immersed in nature alongside rainforest + coastal marine ecology in collaboration with local communities, exploring environmental and socio-political themes.
Deadline 15 July 2018
La Wayaka Current
@lawayakacurrent
@lawayakacurrent
www.lawayakacurrent.com
Writer in Residence
Frieze Writer's Prize 2018
Aspiring art critics are invited to submit one unpublished review of a recent contemporary art exhibition, which should be 700 words in length.
Suitable exhibitions include: those focusing on the work of living artists or art made after 1950; group shows featuring contemporary and historical works; presentations of historical works in galleries which primarily show the work of contemporary artists.
To be eligible you may have only published a maximum of three pieces of writing on art. Published writing on subjects other than art are not counted and writers with experience outside of art criticism are eligible to enter the competition.
Deadline 16 July 2018
Exhibition Opportunity
OGA VideoArt Exhibitions 2018/2019
Born in 2013, the space of the OGA (Ospizio Giovani Artisti / Young Artists Hospice) organizes from four to six group exhibitions every year, with contemporary and modern art works that come exclusively from the Collection of the OGA. The selected video works will be screened in the upcoming group exhibitions of the season 2018/2019 of the OGA. The videos will be projected sequentially on one or more monitors. The Open Call accepts only VideoArt works. Please don't send narrative or documentary works.
Deadline 31 July 2018
Ospizio Giovani Artisti, Rome, Italy
@OArtisti
@OspizioGiovaniArtisti
www.filmfreeway.com
Prizes and Awards
Open Call for COAL Prize 2018
The COAL Prize is open to artists throughout the world who dare to imagine and experiment, to transform territories, lifestyles, organisations, and production methods. Together, they are building a new collective narrative, a new vision, developing our future heritage, and in doing so creating the necessary optimistic framework for everyone to find the means and the motivation to implement the changes needed for a more sustainable and just world.
The winner of the COAL 2018 Prize will receive an award of 5,000 euros and a residency with additional financial support for artistic production at the Belval estate (Ardennes), property of the François Sommer Foundation.
Deadline 31 July 2018
Exhibition Opportunity
The Blue Dot Open Call
No matter where you live on the planet you are connected to the sea. We are looking for ARTISTS that go below the surface to create, visualise and help give the ocean a much needed voice. In our lifetime half of all marine life has disappeared. Through art we can engage audiences and build stronger connections with the deep blue sea and inspire change. This is a human crisis and never have our oceans been in more danger. Artists have the responsibility to help people visualise these problems.
Deadline 8 August 2018
The Blue Dot Generation
Twitter: @bluedotgenerat1
Facebook: @BlueDotGeneration
www.bluedotgeneration.squarespace.com
Artist in Residence
The Horniman Residency
Artquest, in partnership with the Horniman, are offering a research residency for one London based artist to focus on our collections (Anthropology, Aquarium and Animal Walk, Archive, Butterfly House, Natural History, Gardens or Musical Instruments). The residency includes an award of £3000 to engage with the work and collections of the museum, an additional award of £850 towards a public facing event showcasing the thinking and research undertaken during the residency and privileged access to museum’s music collection objects and curators. We particularly welcomes applications from artists with a participatory or socially engaged practice.
Deadline 13 August 2018
Artquest
Twitter: @ARTQUESTLONDON
Facebook: londonartquest
www.artquest.org.uk
Exhibition Opportunity
International Open Call: Polluted Postcards
This exhibition will be showcasing ‘Polluted Postcards’ that highlight the current/future reality of pollution. The aim of the exhibition is to help raise the profile of the impact of pollution upon the environment, people and animals.
You are invited to submit up to 5 designs, which must be about pollution (such as water/land /thermal pollution), whether its showing pollution in a natural or urban environment, the effects/impacts of pollution or prevention: Whatever your creative mind thinks up.
There is no wrong or right way of how your ‘Polluted Postcard’ design should look, as long as they are good quality prints. All mediums are welcome.
Deadline 20 August 2018
Polluted Postcards, Plymouth
@Siossios_art
www.projectsandcastle.com
Prizes and Awards
Artzine Art Prize 2018
Calling artists from around the world! Artzine is now inviting talented artists to take part in our upcoming international Art Prize 2018, starting on May 21st. In addition to providing artists with a great opportunity for exposure of their work in front of a global audience, the Art Prize 2018 will also share a 8.000€ award among the winners of the 4 competing categories: figurative art, abstract art, urban and pop art, and people’s choice. Participate and enjoy the opportunity of exhibiting your art in front of a global audience of artists, collectors and art lovers; and don’t miss the chance of winning a nice sum of money! For further details, please visit the Art Prize 2018 page.
Deadline 1 September 2018
Exhibition Opportunity
Open Call for Surfaces
The theme of the call refers to the space that delimits, separates and at the same time brings into contact what is inside and outside of any physical material object. The surface understood as a place of contact through which we grasp meanings and informations that can involve us with the different senses, a space that, in our being and live fluidly, becomes fundamental in the relationship with everything that belongs to the real world, that are living beings or not.
Accepted media: Photography, Digital Graphic, Digital Visual
Deadline 15 September 2018
LoosenArt
@LoosenArt
@loosenart
www.loosenart.com
Prizes and Awards
International Light Art Award
Goal of the International Light Art Award, an initiative of the Centre for International Light Art Unna and Innogy Foundation, is to show works by emerging artists, who will contribute to the development of light art in an innovative and creative way. As a competence centre of light art, it is the museum’s concern to inspire and promote.
In an Open Call, we invite artists around the globe to hand in their concepts for light art installations.
The three finalists will be invited to realise their works for the exhibition. Production costs will be covered (for each installation up to a maximum of 10,000 € including transport). Travel and hotel costs will be covered separately. The winner receives prize money of 10,000 €. The prize will be presented during a celebratory award ceremony.
Deadline 16 September 2018
International Light Art Award
Facebook: InternationalLightArtAward
www.ilaa.eu
Prizes and Awards
International Awards for Art Criticism
The Awards are explicitly intended to stimulate new critical writing. For the second year running, only previously unpublished reviews will be eligible for consideration. These International Awards are open to candidates from anywhere in the world. Submissions will be welcomed from 1 May 2018 onwards. First prize: 10,000 EUR plus a short visit to Shanghai or London for an essay in Chinese or English. Three equal second prizes of 3,500 EUR for an essay in Chinese or English. The deadline for entries is Sunday 23 September 2018. Candidates, at any stage of their career, are invited to write a review of 1,500 words or 2,500 Chinese characters on any exhibition of contemporary art, held anywhere in the world between 20 September 2017 and 20 September 2018.
Deadline 23 September 2018
Competition
The CGTrader Digital Art Competition 2018
CGTrader has just launched the Digital Art Competition with prizes worth more than $60,000, and it’s open to all CG artists (both 2D and 3D). It’s very easy to participate: you can submit your works of art to six very broad categories, like Character Illustration or Environment Concept, there are no strict requirements, and artworks do not have to be created exclusively for the competition, so you can enter your best and favorite works.
In addition to the prizes, the competition offers massive exposure to artists in CGtrader’s 1.2M+ user community, and the entry which gets the most votes will win the Public Award.
Deadline 30 September 2018
CG Trader, Vilnius
@cgtrader
@CG_Trader
www.cgtrader.com
Exhibition Opportunity
Shadows - Open Call for Artists
As many philosophers testify, Plato in the first place, the shadow since ancient times has always been the object of symbolic interpretations and associations, becoming a reason for reflection on the human condition and its existence.
The present call invites photographers and graphic designers to propose works in which the shadow is called to play a role that is not only metaphorical on the philosophical or conceptual level, but also as a compositional element of an image that, in contrast with the light, confers more pathos to a scene and / or a subject.
Deadline 15 October 2018
LoosenArt
Twitter: @LoosenArt
Facebook: @loosenart
www.loosenart.com
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