VSA Emerging Young Artists Program

This call for art challenges artists to embrace life's detours, to seize and explore those spontaneous forays off the beaten path. With a detour, the destination remains the same but the journey to reach it can be full of surprise and discovery. When making a shift in direction, how do you choose to navigate? Does your artwork bypass the ordinary and challenge the predictable? We're asking artists to consider what's possible and to celebrate the marvelous and unexpected.

The VSA Emerging Young Artists Program, a Jean Kennedy Smith Arts and Disability Program, recognizes and showcases the work of emerging young artists with disabilities, ages 16-25, who are residing in the United States.

Fifteen winning artists share a total of $60,000 in awards. Grand Prize is $20,000, First Prize is $10,000, Second Prize is $6,000, and the remaining Awards of Excellence are $2,000 each. Winning artwork will be exhibited in a year-long, nationally touring exhibition, and artists will attend an all-expenses-paid professional development workshop in Washington, DC.

Deadline is May 31, 2018.

Apply here. Learn more here.