Open Call for Artists: ArtStream 2025 – Garden of Delight

A Public Celebration of Art and Nature

ArtYard is pleased to announce an open call for artists to submit proposals for ArtStream 2025: Garden of Delight, a group exhibition celebrating the intersection of art, nature, and community. This year marks a special milestone as we bring the ArtStream project to our new space in the heart of Kingston, New York.

About ArtStream
ArtStream is a seasonal, fully accessible creative courtyard that hosts performances, installations, guest exhibitions, and community art happenings. Our ongoing mission is to experiment with alternative modes of public engagement with art, aiming to make art more present and accessible in daily life. Initiated in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ArtStream was designed as a creative response to the increasing need for community engagement and creative uses of public spaces like the Point Rail Trail. During a time of physical distancing and isolation, nature walks provided a rare, safe retreat, and we saw the importance of combining recreation, culture, and art—offering spaces for social, visual, and emotional connection, even from a distance.

Now entering its forth year, ArtStream continues to offer an opportunity to enhance the meaning of our public spaces, bringing uniqueness, creativity, and shared experiences to our community.

The 2025 Theme: "The Garden of Delight"
For the first time, we are hosting ArtStream at our new ArtYard location in Kingston, and we are inviting artists, designers, makers, thinkers, farmers to participate in the Garden of Delight exhibition. We are looking for proposals that explore themes of planting, growing, sustainability, and ecology in experimental and innovative ways. The exhibition will be an immersive experience, creating a magical space where local residents and visitors can come together to relax, reflect, and spark their imaginations.

We encourage proposals that respond to the following questions:

• How can we reimagine the garden as a space for nurturing not only plants, but also ideas, community, and the environment?

• What are alternative ways of planting, growing, and caring for our natural world?

• How can we incorporate sustainability into art and design practices while fostering a sense of wonder and delight in nature?

We aim to create an environment that invites connection—to nature, to each other, and to creative practices that offer new possibilities for ecological and social engagement.

In addition to visual artists, we are also inviting performers—musicians, choreographers, poets, and other performance artists—to engage with the themes of the exhibition through live performances and events throughout the duration of the show. This is an opportunity to bring your art to the community and further enrich the public experience of The Garden of Delight. Whether your work explores nature, sustainability, or imaginative concepts tied to the exhibition theme, we encourage a wide range of interpretations.

Who Can Apply?
We welcome submissions from artists, designers, performers, poets, musicians, makers, farmers, and thinkers from all backgrounds. Whether your practice is rooted in planting art practice, environmental art, installation, playground or huge bird house building, performance, sculpture, community-driven initiatives, or experimental design, we encourage you to propose work that reflects your unique perspective on magical garden, community, ecology, nature, and sustainability.

Exhibition Timeline:

• Deadline for Proposals: Monday, February 10, 2025, 11:59PM

• Notification of Selected Artists: Mid-March, 2025

• Interviews and Proposal Discussions: Late March 2025 (to discuss production, funding, and logistics)

• Opening of the Exhibition: Early-May 2025

• Exhibition Closes: Early September 2025

How to Apply: Google Forms

Fee: $15. This small fee helps us cover the administrative costs of running this open call. If you are unable to pay, but would still like to submit your artwork, please send us an email to info@artportkingston.org 

We look forward to receiving your creative proposals and to creating a vibrant, joyful space for art and nature to come together!