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 2027.
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 2026, leading to a launch in spring or summer 2027. 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. Click this link for more information on the Fellowship program.
We welcome artists who are looking to develop a new project or build on a current project in its early stages. The Commission is an opportunity for artists to collaborate deeply with More Art on all aspects of the artwork—as such, we are seeking projects that would benefit from mentorship and artists who are flexible to change and exchange. We are unlikely to support projects that have been presented elsewhere.
Click here to read our definitions of public art and socially engaged art.
2026/27 Theme
Inclusivity & the “I”
For 2027, More Art will focus our programs on the theme of “Inclusivity” across gender, age, race, disability, immigration status and other lived difference. The “I” of Inclusivity opens urgent questions about identity, immigration, intelligence, invisibility, and ignorance—forces that shape who is included, who is excluded, and under what conditions.
The rise of nationalism(s) across the globe, the expulsion of othered cultures, and the remaking of language around peace, war, social justice, and truth dominates our time. While the “I” gestures to the individual self and the heightened egocentrism of our current moment, we also look toward the possibility of a shared “I” of interdependence that reimagines responsibility, belonging, and agency beyond the singular individual.
For our 2027 Engaging Artists Commission, we invite proposals from artists working across media that critically and creatively engage with the tensions between self and collective, visibility and erasure, access and exclusion, knowledge and misinformation through ambitious, socially engaged public work. We are especially interested in proposals for projects that include sound, movement, spoken word, and other forms of ephemeral public intervention. The selected project may take place as part of a festival or a series of outdoor public activations in New York City.
Projects should be participatory, community-engaged, and rooted in dialogue, experimentation, and the thoughtful use of public space.
How do we define the EA Commission?
2026 will be the seventh year of this program, which grew out of the Engaging Artists Fellowship. The Commission was renamed recently to better reflect its purpose—it was previously called the “EA Residency.” While the EA Fellowship model supports the professional development of emerging public artists working at the intersections of art & social justice, the Commission provides a platform for early career socially-engaged artists to present their work in a public space.
Previous commissions have included Xenoduo's A Mobile Home (2024), Immanuel Oni’s Beyond Memorial (2023), Lily & Honglei’s The Red String (2022), Sean Desiree’s Beam Ensemble (2021) and Nolan Hanson’s Trans Boxing (2020).
More Art offers artists a unique pathway to be able to continue their practice in collaboration with advocacy organizations, schools, coalitions, unions, groups of neighbors, or the public at large. We highly encourage applications from artists whose work is participatory or follows traditions of interventionism and partnerships or elements of community organizing and education.
Community Engagement + the Engaging Artists Model
More Art believes art and artists play an integral role in empowering social justice movements by creatively illuminating social issues, engaging new audiences in activism, and catalyzing public discourse. The EA program enables artists to deepen their understanding of public art that is socially engaged through direct action including volunteering, outreach initiatives, workshops, expanded stakeholdership and the building of publics, educational programs, and public works. When applicable, More Art will assist our participants in establishing and/or sustaining crucial partnerships with community-based organizations, advocacy groups, agencies, neighborhoods, places, individuals or groups of New Yorkers.
Artist Community + Mentorship
In order to build strong artist-led coalitions, More Art believes in creating synergies between artists in various stages of their careers through dialogue and access to accomplished artists working in/with the public. There will be opportunities to connect with More Art’s commissioned public artists.
Our EA artists will also have an opportunity to engage and collaborate with a diverse network of past EA participants whose work addresses such critical issues as immigrant rights and economic empowerment, food justice, health and human services, housing justice, and gentrification. A large number of our EA alumni from both program tracks continue work in collaboration with others they have met during the program.
Click here to learn more about our commitment to community engagement and the Engaging Artists model.