Open Call: Artworks 2026 ‘Hold This’
VISUAL and Carlow Arts Festival invites applications for Artworks 2026 ‘Hold This’, the annual open call exhibition. Deadline is Friday 27 March 2026 at 5pm.
VISUAL and Carlow Arts Festival are pleased to announce Hold This as the title and theme of the 2026 edition of Artworks, the annual open-call exhibition hosted by VISUAL as part of Carlow Arts Festival.
“Hold this” is a request for help – “Can you hold this?”; a gift – “Here, hold this” and an empathetic directive: “Hold this space” for someone or something; from psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s concept of “holding”. It requires human touch; physical engagement with a thing, person or the world
Hold This invites submission of artworks about exchange; of ideas, stories, skills, knowledge, histories and experiences. We encourage submissions that foreground analogue skills and human engagement in an increasingly digitised, fragmented, decontextualised, disembodied age. In a moment that threatens the erasure of learned skill and imagination, we want human hands to make human things – submissions generated by AI will not be accepted.
Artists are invited to submit existing work in any medium for selection. This year we will also accept submissions that propose existing or already conceived workshops, events or performances that offer ways of engaging with the themes outlined above. If selected, these will be presented in the galleries at VISUAL on agreed-upon dates throughout June, July or August. Please note Artworks is not a commissioning exhibition, proposed works should already exist.
Hold This will be presented in the galleries at VISUAL from Thursday 28 May - Sunday 30 August 2026. All artists selected will receive an artist's fee. Artworks 2026 is open to visual art in all mediums.
The selection panel consists of; VISUAL’s Curator Benjamin Stafford and Learning Curator Clare Breen; Carlow Arts Festival’s Artistic Director and CEO Mikey Martins and Creative Producer Orlaith Treacy, and socially engaged artist Kate O’Shea.
Alongside Hold This is a new solo exhibition by Kate O’Shea. Kate’s collaborative work centres exchange of knowledge and practical skills as a way to expand our understanding of the world. Titled Mycelium, Kate’s exhibition will act as a meeting point between archives, communities and political imaginaries.
Deadline is Friday 27 March 2026 at 5pm GMT.
Submissions will not be accepted after this time.
The online application form and will be automatically sent to Carlow Arts Festival once you press submit. NOTE: Submissions cannot be accepted via email.
Please contact fmoran@carlowartsfestival.ie with any queries.