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Open Call for Exhibition Proposals

Proposal Deadlines 

  • Deadline Summer 2027 Consideration: November 30, 2026, midnight
  • Deadline for Fall 2028–Summer 2029 Consideration: March 30, 2027, midnight

The Eastern Connecticut State University Art Gallery invites artists and curators at all stages of their careers to submit proposals for exhibitions in our gallery. We are seeking ambitious, thoughtful, experimental projects that engage with meaningful questions about human experience and invite our university community to think, look, and learn together. 

The ECSU Art Gallery is a teaching gallery. We believe exhibitions can be sites of inquiry, conversation, experimentation, and exchange and are particularly interested in working with artists and curators who are excited to engage directly with students.

What We're Looking For

As Connecticut’s public liberal arts university, Eastern Connecticut State is committed to the kind of broad, interdisciplinary inquiry that asks not only what we know, but how and why we know it. As a teaching gallery within that environment, we seek exhibitions that ask meaningful questions about ourselves and our society. We welcome proposals that are interdisciplinary, experimental, unexpected, participatory, research-driven, or difficult to categorize. 

We are especially interested in: 

  • New or developing bodies of work
  • Experimental projects and new approaches to exhibition-making
  • Exhibitions that bring together unexpected artists, disciplines, or ideas
  • Projects that engage with questions meaningful to contemporary students and communities
  • Work that challenges conventional assumptions about what an exhibition can be
  • Proposals that create opportunities for dialogue, participation, or exchange
  • Ideas that are compelling precisely because they are still evolving

Your proposal does not need to be fully realized. We are interested in work that is already accomplished, as well as ideas that are still becoming.

Who Should Apply? 

Artists and curators at all career stages are encouraged to apply, from emerging practitioners to established and late-career professionals. We welcome independent curators, artist-curators, collectives, educators, interdisciplinary practitioners, and artists working in any medium.

A Teaching Gallery

The Eastern Connecticut State University Art Gallery is a teaching and exhibition space within Connecticut's public liberal arts university. We are committed to presenting contemporary art and ideas while creating opportunities for students to encounter artists, curators, and professional practices firsthand.  

We hope to work with artists and curators who are interested in the possibilities of a university setting. Selected applicants will have opportunities to work directly with ECSU students through activities such as artist or curator talks, class visits, workshops, demonstrations, critiques, conversations, collaborative projects, or other forms of engagement. We are open to experimental approaches and do not expect applicants to arrive with a fully developed educational program. 

In your proposal, tell us how you might imagine working with students. What could students learn from you? What might you learn from them? What kinds of conversations, encounters, or experiences could the exhibition make possible? We will work collaboratively with selected artists and curators to develop an appropriate program of engagement. 

We believe a university gallery should be a place where people can ask difficult questions, encounter unfamiliar perspectives, experiment with new ideas, and participate in the cultural life of their community. 

Bring us the question you can't stop thinking about. Tell us what you want to investigate and imagine what might happen if you investigated it with our students.

Compensation and Exhibition Support

The ECSU Art Gallery believes that artists’ and curators’ creative, intellectual, and professional labor should be compensated. 

Selected exhibition proposals will receive a curatorial or artist exhibition fee. The gallery will also work with selected participants to provide appropriate support for exhibition-related expenses, including shipping, travel, lodging, installation, and programming, within available resources. Additional compensation may be available for substantial professional services such as artist talks, workshops, lectures, or commissioned writing.  

Specific compensation and exhibition support will be discussed with selected applicants as part of the planning process. If you would like to discuss whether your budget will be financially feasible for us, please reach out to the director at churchillsar@easternct.edu.

What to Submit

Please prepare to answer the following questions and apply today.

  1. Exhibition title or working title
  2. Exhibition proposal (2 pages maximum)
    • Describe the exhibition, the questions it explores, and why you believe those questions are meaningful now. What would visitors encounter? What ideas, conversations, or experiences do you hope the exhibition will generate?
  3. Proposed artists and/or works
    • Provide a preliminary list of artists and works, if applicable. The proposal does not need to represent a final checklist. We welcome exhibitions that are still developing.
  4. Student engagement
    • Describe how you might engage with ECSU students through the exhibition. This might include a talk, workshop, class visit, demonstration, collaborative project, critique, conversation, or something you invent.
  5. Exhibition requirements
    • Describe any significant spatial, technical, installation, equipment, or other requirements. Please identify any anticipated fabrication or production needs.
  6. Preliminary budget
    • Provide an estimate of significant exhibition-related expenses, if known.
  7. Curriculum vitae
    • up to 5 pages.
  8. Work samples
    • Artists should submit 10–15 images or other appropriate documentation of their work. This may be a link to website.
    • Curators should submit documentation or links to 2–3 previous curatorial projects, exhibitions, or related work. Curators may also submit writing samples if relevant.
    • Links to websites, video, audio, or other supplementary materials may be included.

Selection Process

Proposals will be reviewed and selected through a collaborative process involving members of our student community, rather than by the gallery director alone. The selection process is intended to bring multiple perspectives into conversation and to reflect the gallery's role within the university. 

Proposals will be considered based on: 

  • The strength, originality, and thoughtfulness of the exhibition idea
  • The significance or urgency of the questions it raises
  • The potential to engage ECSU students and the broader university community
  • The quality and relevance of the proposed work
  • The potential for experimentation, dialogue, and meaningful exchange
  • Feasibility within the gallery's physical and financial resources

Career stage, institutional recognition, and previous museum exhibition history will not necessarily determine eligibility or selection. 

Questions about the open call may be emailed to the gallery director, Sarah Churchill: churchillsar@easternct.edu.