**More Art’s Engaging Artists Commission is an opportunity for early career artists focused on the incubation and commissioning of a public art project and carries an $8000 award to realize the project, plus curatorial, conceptual, budgetary, and logistical mentorship.**

  
**What to expect**

$8000 will be awarded to one socially-engaged art project to take place in a public space in New York City. The selected project must culminate in a public art installation, event, series, collaboration, or engagement in 2026.

More Art’s curatorial team will provide guidance in refining project concepts, developing public programming, and navigating the logistics of working in public space. Artists will also have opportunities to present their work in critical dialogues and events that further contextualize the project within broader conversations on history, memory, and social justice.

The EA Commission is open to early-career artists, including individuals and collectives, based in the U.S. with a demonstrated interest in public and socially engaged art. Prior experience working in public art is not required, but applicants should have a strong conceptual foundation and a commitment to engaging with communities through their work.

**The project will begin with an incubation and research phase in September of 2025, leading to a launch in spring or summer 2026.** Additional funding beyond the $8000 is not available, and artists are encouraged to take an honorarium for their work. As such, proposals should be scaled to appropriately reflect the calendar and budget offered for the commission.

Artists are also invited to participate in workshops, artist talks, and peer network support with the EA Fellows.

  
**Theme**

**In 2026, the Commission will address the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, a moment that invites celebration, reflection and a pause. This year we will focus on revealing histories that have been forgotten, suppressed, or overwritten, particularly those of Indigenous cultures, diasporic communities, and other marginalized groups whose stories have been erased or displaced from the dominant narrative.** Along with spotlighting forgotten histories of displacement and forced migration, we are also interested in proposals that engage with the transformation of land and water due to colonization, industrialization, and extraction in New York City and beyond.

Projects may take many forms, including immersive sound walks and tours, temporary sculptural or site-responsive installations, performance-based works and interventions, polyvocal storytelling, and community-engaged workshops or participatory actions. While the format is open, projects should be deeply engaged with site, accessible to the public, and create opportunities for collective reflection, interaction, or historical reimagining. Projects that incorporate community participation and intergenerational storytelling, performance, and oral history as a means of reclaiming erased histories are of particular interest.

**Budget + resource allocation**

The $8000 award should cover all elements of research and development, production, exhibition, display, and documentation. A project budget is requested as part of the application.

Engaging Artists Commission

**More Art’s year-long Engaging Artists Fellowship is designed to help emerging NYC artists and community organizers develop and sustain a socially engaged and public art practice.**

The Fellowship program curriculum includes mentorship, peer feedback, community building, workshops and artist talks tailored to the interests/needs of the cohort, and access to programming opportunities in New York City.

The infrastructure and laboratory provided by More Art allow selected emerging and underrepresented artists to gain a deeper understanding of the history and vitality of public and socially engaged art. This fellowship encourages artists to not only expand and to develop their social practice but also to promote use of socially engaged art as a tool for change.

EA Fellows will finish with a culminating presentation at the end of the fellowship year. Many fellowship projects become multi-year initiatives, and, as such, the culminating presentation is not a conclusion of the fellows’ work but rather an opportunity to highlight their budding creative practice and project journey.

  
**Timeline:**

**August 2025:** Fellowship year starts.

**July 2026:** Fellowship year ends.

  
**Who can apply?**

The Engaging Artists Fellowship offers insights and strategies to collaborate with communities, rebuild and shape our society, and build sustainable careers. More Art welcomes applications from NYC artists of all disciplines, including but not limited to: visual artists, performers, choreographers, designers, and new media artists. Currently enrolled undergraduate students may not apply. Collective applications are welcome. An interest in socially engaged practice is crucial.

The Fellowship is a program for incubation, experimentation, collaboration, and implementation stages of early socially engaged public art projects. We understand and encourage artists who see the combination of socially engaged work and creative practice as a long-term commitment no matter how much of a body of work they’ve generated previously.

  
**Qualifications**

* Interest in More Art’s work and eagerness to learn (no prior experience in public art or socially engaged art necessary!)
* Willingness to present, support, and attend work produced in community and public settings, as opposed to galleries and museums
* Strong commitment to More Art’s values, including but not limited to social justice and public engagement, inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility, and collaboration
* Commitment to intersectional thinking and artmaking
* Willingness to act with care and respect toward all collaborators, including More Art staff, other Fellows, and community members
* Eagerness to contribute to a nurturing environment with and for Fellows
* Interest in establishing and/or sustaining partnerships with community-based organizations, advocacy groups, agencies, neighborhoods, places, individuals and/or groups of New Yorkers
* Belief that art and artists are integral to empowering social justice movements by creatively illuminating social issues, engaging new audiences in activism, and catalyzing public discourse

  
**Fellowship output + expectations**

Over the course of the Fellowship year, Fellows are expected to:

* Develop a Theory (or theories!) of Change, with help from the Fellowship Leader
* Develop a set of individualized goals for the Fellowship year
* Develop a culminating presentation (public, or otherwise), with assistance from More Art staff, of or about the work you’ve developed during the More Art Fellowship
* Attend monthly 1-to-1 individualized mentorship meetings with More Art staff
* Attend monthly in-person and virtual workshops/artist talks

  

Each Fellow will receive **monthly 1-to-1 individualized mentorship sessions** with More Art staff. Additionally, the Fellowship Leader will facilitate **monthly generative workshops, discussions, and collaborative feedback sessions**, tailored to the practices and needs of the cohort. The program will culminate in **culminating presentations by each Fellow**, public or otherwise, of or about work developed over the course of the program. At the end of the year, **Fellows can expect to receive a small stipend of at least $250 each** (each member of a collective will receive a stipend) to be used for expenses related to their practice. Fellows can also **expect to spend 15 hours per month on average** on More Art-related work.

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