APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS

• You can submit a maximum of 10 still images OR a maximum of 2 videos and 5 still images. Please choose the one that best suits your practice. 
• PLEASE NOTE: due to the high volume of applications we receive, your submission may not exceed the amount of works allowed: 10 images OR 2 videos + 5 images. If you try to submit MORE than 5 images AS WELL AS videos, the panelists will prioritize the videos and not consider the final 5 images as part of the application. 
• Videos in your submission should show your original time-based work (media or performance) or installation of it in a physical space. Videos should NOT be used to show documentation of still work or a single channel installation. 
• Videos in your submission should NOT be a reel, but one continuous excerpt. Title credits should be listed in the "video information" section.
• You can submit only one application per residency cycle  

Program Eligibility 

All applicants for the Studio Program should be emerging or early career artists. We define an emerging artist as one who is at the beginning of their public artistic career and would greatly benefit from the opportunities we provide, such as regular studio visits with New York City curators, public open studio events, and free studio space. Artists may have some experience participating in group shows, solo shows at lesser-known art spaces, some press recognition, and/or are recent graduates of BFA or MFA programs. We do not consider artists emerging if they have had solo exhibitions at widely recognized galleries or institutions; already received consistent production opportunities, awards, and press; and/or if they have 10 years or more of consistent public experience as an artist. Age is not a determining factor. 

Applicants must also be legal residents of NYC and file their taxes in NYC for minimum one year prior to the application deadline. Applicants must be residing in NYC at the time of the application process and for the term of the residency. If you become a finalist and are invited for an interview, you must be able to provide a tax return for proof of residency. All applicants must be United States citizens or legal Permanent Residents of the United States, 18 years or older, may not be enrolled in any degree program, and must be able to demonstrate need for a studio. Applicants may not be a resident artist in another studio program at the same time as the Smack Mellon residency. 

The 2027-2028 program begins September 5, 2027 and ends August 5, 2028.        

All six of the artists selected for the studio program will receive a fellowship, three will receive a New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowship. The New York Community Trust’s Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund provides support for talented, culturally diverse, economically disadvantaged young people who are seriously dedicated to a career in the arts.       

*Applicant Requirements for The New York Community Trust Van Lier Fellowship are to support artists who are seriously dedicated to a career in the arts, reside in New York City, identify racially and or culturally with a historically underrepresented community, age 30 or younger, and have a demonstrated need for financial assistance to advance their artistic career. If you feel you are qualified and would like to be considered for one of Smack Mellon’s (3) Van Lier funded studios you will have a place to indicate your interest in the application form. Please note that if you have received a Van Lier Fellowship from another organization, you are not eligible for this.*       

For those who are not eligible for the Van Lier Fellowship, the other three slots available in Smack Mellon’s Studio Program are for emerging artists of any age who are New York City residents.  

Selection Process

A panel of arts professionals and artists will review applications and select artists for the 2027-2028 season. Artists will be selected based on the quality of their work and their potential for making the most of their time in the program. The 2027-2028 program begins September 5, 2027 and ends August 5, 2028. Notifications go out in late May 2027. Please do not call or email the office for selection results. 

Before applying, we encourage you to read about the Artist Studio Program, by clicking here. 

FORMATTING IMAGES

• Each image file must be titled: LastName_FirstName_image number. Example: Smith_John_01.
• File type: JPEG, 1000px maximum in any direction
• Image information: title, medium, date, and dimensions for each entry
• Image script: Enter up to 50 words of description about the content or context of each image or series of images. This information will be reviewed by the panel when your work is viewed.

FORMATTING VIDEOS

• Each video file must be titled: LastName_FirstName_video number.  Example: Smith_John_01.
• File types: Mp4, AVI, MOV, MPG.
• Video information: title, medium, production date, and total run time. 
• Video script: Enter up to 50 words about the content of your video. This information will be reviewed by the panel when your work is viewed. 

For any inquiries about the program please email: info@smackmellon.org        

For technical questions go to: http://help.submittable.com/

Open Call For Emerging Artists: Summer 2027 Group Exhibition

 Deadline for submissions is December 1, 2026 at midnight. 

Smack Mellon invites submissions for a summer group exhibition to be guest-curated by Alma Chaouachi. 

The open call takes as its departure point a public installation by artist and engineer Vishal Rawlley, who was commissioned to develop Hauz-i-Shamsi, or “Say Hello to the Hauz,” in a historic reservoir in Mehrauli, Delhi in 2010. Commissioned to make a case for ‘Internet art’ at a time where technology-based artistic practices were still being defined, Rawlley used networked technology to draw attention to the increasingly polluted reservoir, creating a way for the surrounding community to interact with it. 

The artist built at the center of the reservoir a floating sculpture of a Buraq–a winged creature famous in Islamic mythology, also connected to the history and cultural associations of the reservoir–linked to a telephone line and an LED system. Rawlley distributed flyers with a number to call and a Skype link to access, allowing for visitors and neighbours to leave messages about the water and the pollution of the reservoir as they watched the sculpture from their computer. Some called to sing; others spoke of love. Their voices activated the lights on the Buraq, illuminating the sculpture on the water and encouraging more calls to keep it lit. Both the landline and the sculpture became interfaces through which the place could be addressed, listened to and reimagined.

Rawlley’s attempt at environmental awareness from the neighborhood was later judged unsuccessful and criticized, as it was perceived as a call for squatting and trashing the reservoir further. While he had deliberately designed the work to allow for unanticipated meanings and uses, in the uncanny traces of communal synchronization, play, and participation that emerged, the work became something other than what it had set out to be.

Inspired by this case-study, the exhibition invites artists to consider site-specificity, infrastructures, systems, and conditions that prompt an artwork–especially public–to become a site for collectivity. How does a work organize a site, a context, an audience, a set of actions, or a technology into a gathering? What happens when audiences use, interpret, or transform a work beyond the artist’s intent? And what responsibility does an artist have for what the work makes possible?

The call is not necessarily concerned with answers from digital or multimedia practices, but rather in works that operate as studies, proposals or systems for thinking through forms and conditions for collectivity. In addition to traditional visual artwork, this invitation will consider all media and vernacular forms, including technological systems, a set of instructions, an object, a photograph, a sculpture, a film, a drawing, or a sound piece.

To submit your artwork to this call, please be prepared with the following information and documents:

• Up to 3 images of your work that you wish to be included, and/or similar artworks.
• Images must be labeled in the following format: 
  • Lastname_Firstname_01.jpg
  • Lastname_Firstname_02.jpg.. 
  • etc.  
• Up to 2 video excerpts may be included–each video can be 3 minutes maximum. Video submissions will be reviewed for up to 3 minutes, and not over. 
  • Please note that the videos should NOT include documentation of still artworks or exhibitions. Only time-based, moving-image, and/or performance-based works will be reviewed as video submissions. 
• A corresponding image list document with the following information: title, date, medium, dimensions, and up to 100 words each of contextual information. (PDF only.)
• Brief artist statement (150-200 words. PDF only.)
• Current CV (PDF only.)

Artists will be notified in March 2027.

Details and Eligibility:

This call is only open to emerging artists. We define an emerging artist as one who is at the beginning of their public artistic career and would greatly benefit from the opportunities we provide. Artists may have some experience participating in group shows, solo shows at lesser-known art spaces, some press recognition, and/or are recent graduates of BFA or MFA programs. We do not consider artists emerging if they have had solo exhibitions at widely recognized galleries or institutions; already received consistent production opportunities, awards, and press; and/or if they have 10 years or more of consistent public experience/exposure as an artist. Age is not a determining factor. We understand the ambiguity of some of these terms, but hope they offer insight into our selection considerations.

Artists cannot be enrolled in degree seeking programs at the same time as this exhibition.

Smack Mellon can offer a small stipend for participation in this exhibition, which will be determined by the Curator once all artists are selected. We do not have the funds to commission new artworks. Smack Mellon also does not have a budget for shipping, transportation, or on-site production. For that reason, this call is only open to artists living and working in the greater New York City area. 

Smack Mellon hires a small art handling team for each exhibition installation and deinstallation, but artists are responsible for providing Smack Mellon with instructions on safe handling. Artists are expected to be on site for the installation and de-installation of their work unless other arrangements have been made with the Curator and Smack Mellon’s staff. Artists are expected to arrange safe and timely transport of their works to and from the gallery.