Your country needs you(r content): National Gallery of Art in Washington DC launches social media open call – The Art Newspaper

The traditional gift for a one year anniversary is paper, while for 50 years it is gold. But what do you do for a 250th anniversary? Create an influencer-led social media campaign, of course. The National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC is celebrating 250 years since the founding of the US by inviting 50 digital content creators to reinterpret works from the museum’s collection on social media. If this sounds familiar, then it is because it is: the National Gallery (NG) in London did something very similar for its 200th birthday in 2024. (The US gallery declined to comment on whether the London campaign inspired its own.)

“We chose to use this opportunity to expand upon our everyday work as the nation’s art museum to highlight American creativity in various forms,” say the NGA’s chief digital officer, Nick Sharp, and the senior manager of social media, Sydni Myers. “This campaign will give people across the country, particularly younger generations, the chance to not only see the National Gallery as a place that belongs to them, but to see their creations featured within it.”

The museum is looking for 15- to 30-second videos that relate directly to one of the 100 works that have been selected from its collection, and is open to all forms of creativity “from painting, photography and poetry to fashion, dance and animation”, according to a press statement. To be considered, creators must send in a written proposal along with examples of their past work and an explanation as to why they chose the specific work they will riff on. The open call for submissions runs until 28 February and creators must be over 18 and a citizen or permanent resident of the US or its territories to enter.

The 50 chosen creators will be announced in April with each receiving a $3,000 honorarium. “The stipend we’re offering is based on industry research and standards,” Sharp and Myers say. (For comparison, the NG in London offered £4,000, around $5,500, to each participant.) “We’re also excited to provide creators with this high-visibility experience and platform,” the pair say. Selected creations will be shared on the NGA’s social media platforms and inside the museum, reaching more than two million followers online and additional visitors onsite, according to a statement.

The 100 artworks that creators can choose to respond to are a diverse selection from the NGA’s 160,000-strong collection. They include Modernist masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and Édouard Manet; dramatic landscapes and history paintings by Claude-Joseph Vernet and Frederic Edwin Church; sculptures and ceramics; a wide selection of portraits from across cultures and time periods; and—happily for pet lovers like me—plenty of pictures of cats and dogs.

There are a couple of interesting points in the open call guidelines. Firstly, submissions must not be made exclusively using artificial intelligence. “This campaign is all about celebrating human creativity and interpretation, so we’re looking for original work made by creators,” Sharp and Myers say, noting that “entries will also be reviewed entirely by humans”. Secondly, submissions are not allowed to contain political references. When asked how this will be possible, given that ​​the open call is celebrating the formation of the USA—an overtly political moment—Sharp and Myers reply: “We encourage creators to explore the ideas, stories, and perspectives that make our country so vibrant. We will review submissions on a case-by-case basis.” Thankfully, the guidelines also state that discriminative content won’t be accepted, a small win for the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) models that have recently been taking a hit at US museums.

The NGA has a great track record for collaborating with social media creators. They have worked with animators such as Andrey Zakirzyanov, who brought works from the museum’s collection to life online, as well as history-focused creators like Matthijs Van Mierlo (who runs the social media accounts “The Gaze”) and the video-essayist Evan Puschak (who runs the YouTube account “The Nerdwriter”). “These few collaborations have really resonated with people, generating over 16 million video views on Instagram alone. The animations in particular captured our audience’s imagination last year,” Sharp and Myers say.

The museum’s request for submissions to be 15- to 30-second videos reinforces the trend for short-form video online. “We love (and post) all kinds of content, but for this campaign we picked short-form video to help us reach the widest possible audiences,” Sharp and Myers say. “Short-form video reaches more people around the world than any other format on social, so it helps our collection reach audiences who may have never heard of us before.”