ROCKELLA SPACE MAY OPPORTUNITIES:

CURATED LIST BY THE ROCKELLA TEAM

Our monthly top picks of upcoming deadlines in May are curated by the Rockella Space Team for creatives from various industries.

DOCUMENTARY FILM PRIZE

Open to documentary filmmakers focused on American history, the 2025 Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film is a cash prize of $200,000 awarded to one winner, a secondary prize of $50,000 to one runner-up, and $25,000 to each of four finalists.

DEADLINE: May 1st, 2025

VISUAL ARTS AWARD

The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation is pleased to announce a $50,000 award for an artist residing legally in the United States working in the visual arts. In addition to the cash award, The Ellis-Beauregard Foundation invites the awardee to bring a presentation of their choice to our Exhibition/Performance space in Rockland, Maine.

DEADLINE: May 1st, 2025

GRANT

The Laundromat Project‘s Bed-Stuy Create & Connect Fund is a hyperlocal micro-grant program that seeds and supports the creative ideas or civic actions of artists, cultural practitioners, community organizers, activists, and neighbors whose proposals aim to enrich community life in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The Fund provides $1,000 grants toward each funded project.

DEADLINE: May 1st, 2025

FELLOWSHIP

The Processing Foundation Fellowship, themed “Data Storytelling” seeks to support innovative projects from artists, designers, activists, educators, engineers, researchers, coders, collectives, and many more, who are working at the intersection of creative technology, art, and open-source software. The program includes a $10,000 stipend.

DEADLINE: May 2nd, 2025

CALL FOR FILM

The 2025 ArtPort Kingston & Cellar Door Cinema Club’s Summer Film Series: Emerging Hudson Valley Filmmakers is calling for films created by emerging filmakers. The 2025 Summer Film Series will host two Emerging HV Filmmakers shorts screenings, one on July 12 and the other on August 23 . Films submitted through this open call will be considered for both dates, prioritizing the date(s) that the filmmaker and/or a representative of the film can be present.

DEADLINE: May 4th, 2025

GRANT

Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC will award a grant to NYC artists in Performance, Visual Arts, Literature, and Music. Artists are eligible to receive up to $10,000 in funding.

DEADLINE: May 5th, 2025

EXHIBITION OPPORTUNITY

SaveArtSpace is proud to present Immigrant Childhood & Our Nostalgia, a public art exhibition on billboard ad space in Los Angeles, CA, curated by Johanna Toruño. Applications are welcome from immigrants and children of immigrants. There is a $10 donation per image submission.

DEADLINE: May 5th, 2025

WRITERS GRANT

The 2024 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant supports writing about contemporary art and aims to ensure that critical writing remains a valued mode of engaging with the visual arts. Open to any art historian, artist, critic, curator, journalist, or writer in an outside field who is strongly engaged with contemporary visual arts.

DEADLINE: May 7th, 2025

GRANT

NewFest seeks narrative, documentary, experimental, and animated films (both features and shorts) inclusive of–and of interest to–the LGBTQ+ community. Festival submission fees for Black filmmakers with LGBTQ+ stories centering Black characters and perspectives will be waived.

DEADLINE: May 7th, 2025

GRANT

The Yéigo Action Grant provides support for the growing landscape of Native artists and culture bearers who need financial assistance with a professional development opportunity or towards a hardship that is hindering their creative practice. This program offers grants between $100 and $5,000 for individual Native artists and culture bearers.

DEADLINE: May 10th, 2025

VISUAL ARTS AWARD

The Hopper Prize provides unrestricted cash grants in the amount of $3,500 and $1,000 to artists around the globe.

DEADLINE: May 13th, 2025

POETRY PRIZE

Established in 1975, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize is a $25,000 award that recognizes the most outstanding book of poetry published in the United States in the previous calendar year. The prize includes a ten-day residency at Glen Hollow in Naples, New York, and distribution of the winning book to hundreds of Academy of American Poets members.

DEADLINE: MAY 15th, 2025

CURATORIAL OPPORTUNITY

Descanso Gardens invites curators, artists, collectives, cultural producers, and thinkers of all kinds to submit preliminary proposals for exhibitions and programs. Descanso Gardens is committed to giving emerging, mid-career, and established curators and artists the opportunity to expand their portfolios.

DEADLINE: May 16th, 2025

SCULPTURE AWARD

The grant program of the Jonathan and Barbara Silver Foundation encourages and supports sculptors, whether emerging or established, and writers about sculpture. In 2025 the Foundation will award a $20,000 grant to a sculptor who demonstrates an exceptional commitment to sculpture and an imaginative engagement with its materials, histories and situation.

DEADLINE: May 31st, 2025

Fellowship Award

The Eliza Moore Fellowship for Artistic Excellence is awarded annually to one outstanding, early-career artist who is developing new works that address plants, gardens, or landscapes in the broad sense.  This award is open to visual artists, literary artists, dancers, and musicians. The award includes a $10,000 individual grant and requires a 2 – 5 week stay at Oak Spring.

DEADLINE: May 31st, 2025