Urban Arts Space Project Proposals for 2025–2026

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Urban Arts Space is seeking projects for 2025–2026 to showcase at our downtown Columbus gallery at 50 W Town Street, Hopkins Hall Gallery on Ohio State campus, or UAS Online. Projects could include gallery exhibitions, performances, audience participatory work, discussions, research demos, and more. 

Time frames we're looking to fill for our physical venues:

Urban Arts Space: May–November 2025; May–November 2026
Hopkins Hall Gallery: August–December 2025; August–December 2026

A few considerations that will make for a stronger proposal:

  • For exhibitions, we're looking for shows running five weeks or longer. This reduces the strain on our staff when switching out shows and allows us to create a more robust promotions plan.  
  • We’re especially interested in projects with community programming components, such as artist talks, panels, workshops, and collaborations with community partners and nonprofits.
  • Projects should address Urban Arts Space’s mission of challenging perceptions, deepening learning, and increasing access to the arts.
  • While solo proposals will be considered, applicants are encouraged to collaborate and emphasize ideas that foster conversations representing diverse perspectives. 
  • Artists must have ties to Ohio, whether they are artists who live and work in Ohio, students (undergraduate or graduate) attending university in Ohio, alumni of Ohio State, or curators based in Ohio bringing in outside artists on a national or international scale.

Review Rubric

We strive to be transparent with our review process. With that in mind, these are the criteria the committee uses to evaluate proposals:

  • Quality and clarity of work and materials
  • Experimentation with how art is imagined, made, viewed, or understood
  • Breadth of community impact—programming component(s) that foster conversations and represent diverse perspectives
  • Alignment with Urban Arts Space's mission to challenge perceptions, deepen learning, and increase access to the arts

Application Deadline: Sunday, November 10, 2024 at 5:00 PM ET.

Join us for a virtual info session about exhibition proposals on October 18, 2024 at 12:00 PM! Register at https://uas.osu.edu/events/project-proposal-virtual-info-session.

Proposals will be reviewed by an outside committee of community-based members and representatives from The Ohio State University. We hope to send out decisions in late December or early January.

If you have any questions, contact Merijn van der Heijden, Director of Urban Arts Space, at vanderheijden.1@osu.edu. 

Applicant Information

This could include individual artists and/or organizations.

Project Information
Project Type
Preferred Venue(s)

Please provide a summary of your project in 100 words or fewer. If your project is selected, this summary may be used in promotional materials.

Clearly articulate what this project is about. Also include the significance of it. How does your project experiment with how art is imagined, made, viewed, or understood?

When writing your description, consider the following questions:

+ What is your exhibition or project about?
+ What are the conceptual underpinnings of the work?
+ How does the process of making your art contribute to the final presentation?

These are the time frames we're looking to fill for our physical venues:

Urban Arts Space: May–November 2025; May–November 2026
Hopkins Hall Gallery: August–December 2025; August–December 2026

We cannot guarantee the artist's first choice of date and location, but we will work with accepted project leads to accommodate their schedule.

How do you plan on activating your proposed space? How do you want the audience to interact with the work?

If you are interested in additional programming—such as artist talks, workshops, panel discussions, and/or audience participatory events—please include information in your proposal with as many details as possible. 

+ Program title
+ Ideal date
+ A description of the event
+ Collaborators/community involvement

Provide the ideal timeline for your exhibition or project in terms of installation, run time, programming, and teardown.

Urban Arts Space can provide the services and resources below. Please list your needs. UAS cannot pay artists or cover the costs for shipping, transportation, framing, specialized hardware, or furniture at this time, but artists are welcome to apply for outside grant funding or artist stipends from GCAC, OAC, and other organizations.

+ Limited signage for the project, including vinyl
+ Installation (framing not included)
+ Pedestals and display cases (limited inventory)
+ Lighting, TV screens, and projectors (limited inventory)
+ Marketing (flyer design/printing, social media promotion)
+ Reception space with light refreshments

Please upload the CV or résumé for a maximum of two project participants, including the project lead.

Upload requirements

Please upload a maximum of six images or videos representing the work that will be featured in the project. These do not need to be high-resolution photos. JPG, PNG, MP3, and MP4 file types are preferred. Name each file using the format ARTIST NAME_PIECE TITLE.

Upload requirements
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