Apply now! The Anderson and VCUarts are pleased to announce the 2026 Undergraduate Juried Exhibition, juried by Stamatina Gregory, Head Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York. Applications are open now through September 22nd, 2026! The exhibition will on view at The Anderson from November 12th-November 20th, with an opening reception from 5-8pm on Thursday, November 12th.
The Undergraduate Juried Exhibition (UJE) is open to currently enrolled undergraduate students from all VCUarts Departments, working individually or collaboratively in any media or discipline – or combination thereof. If you are a current VCUarts undergrad, you’re invited to apply!
THEME: Selected by our Juror, the theme for the Fall 2026 Undergraduate Juried Exhibition is “Freedom and Constraint.” The theme is intended to inspire rather than limit – the Juror will take a broad interpretation of the theme and participants are encouraged to do the same. If you have a work you’d like to submit but are unsure about its relationship to the theme, submit it! The Juror’s full prompt is provided here:
Freedom and Constraint:
“Through published lists and guidelines affecting public websites, grants, and research communications, the US federal government has restricted the use of over 350 words and phrases, from ‘accessible’ to ‘underrepresented.’ Related restrictions against speech and terminology have been passed by state governments, targeting higher education in particular. While regressive and indefensible, restrictions on inclusive speech (‘inclusive’ also a banned term) also prompt a reflection on artmaking in this moment.
“The tangle of complications and contradictions that surround artmaking’s freedoms and constraints have as much–or more–to do with a host of extralegal conditions. How do we shape or constrain work, consciously or unconsciously, for instructors, community, family, disembodied strangers? How do we speak or make in codes–and to stifling or liberatory ends? Art history is rife with examples of work made under many different sets of conditions and constraints, often self-imposed. If we are ultimately constrained, as Claudia Rankine has pointed out, by our own imaginations, ‘creatures as limited as we ourselves are,’ how can we find ways to productively, even radically, open up those limits?”
TO APPLY, PLEASE SUBMIT:
- Up to 3 works (see file size and format requirements below for details)
- A resume or CV
- An artist statement, up to 250 words, that will help the juror appreciate the meaning(s), material techniques, concepts and/or context of your work.
FILE REQUIREMENTS:
- Images or Text: JPG or PDF, up to than 5MB
- Video – up to 250MB
- Audio – up to 30MB
Timeline:
- Submissions Open: August 18
- Submissions Close: September 22
- Selected Artists Notified: October 16
- Exhibition Open: November 12
- Exhibition Close: November 20
DELIVERING ARTWORK: Students are responsible for delivering artwork that is install-ready to The Anderson.
JUROR AWARDS: A number of awards including the Dean’s Award, Juror, and department-specific recognitions will be given out.
ABOUT THE JUROR: Stamatina Gregory is Head Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, where they work to advance discourse on queer and trans art and artists through exhibitions, programs, a fellowship program, and acquisitions. Since joining the Museum in 2020, Gregory has organized a yearlong performance series (Remote Intimacies, 2020-2021) and initiated the Interventions initiative, which invites artists and cultural producers to generate work in dialogue with the Museum’s collection of over 25,000 objects: resulting exhibitions include Coyote Park: I Love You Like Mirrors Do (2022) and andrea geyer: a promise of lightning (2024). They have organized exhibitions for institutions including the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, the ICA LA, the 55th Venice Biennale, and the Cooper Union, where they also served as the Associate Dean of the School of Art (2013-2017). They have taught art history, critical theory, writing, and curatorial practice at the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Parsons/The New School, the School of Visual Arts, Purchase College, and Sotheby’s Institute.
