Compete The Sweep of Time: Beyond the Horizon
Opportunity Description
International Deadline: June 28, 2026 – The Cincinnati based non-profit arts organization and gallery, Manifest, invites visual artists and designers to submit original lens-based works that explore the orientation of time.
Marcus Aurelius wrote of contemplating “the sweep of time” as a way to ease the weight of present concerns—to find orientation not in the turbulence of the moment, but in the longer arcs of history, memory, and continuity. The Sweep of Time: Beyond the Horizon takes that idea as its premise and invites lens-based artists to explore it.
The horizon here is not a boundary. It is an opening—a threshold between what is immediate and what persists, between the visible and what lies just beyond seeing. Works may address any subject, era, or form; what matters is not the topic but the orientation—a quality of expanded vision in which the image reaches past its own moment, holding the immediate and the enduring in the same frame. Such images resist the reactive pull of the present and invite the viewer to slow down, look further, and reconsider their own place within the unfolding of time.
The Sweep of Time: Beyond the Horizon is presented as part of the 2026 FotoFocus Biennial, The Long View. In a moment of persistent turbulence, this exhibition affirms art’s role as a stabilizing force—one that fosters clarity, patience, and a deeper sense of orientation within time.
On display September 25 – October 23, 2026.
ELIGIBILITY
THE SWEEP OF TIME is open to everyone internationally. The only limitation is that entries must represent original works which address the broad theme described above. Open to all traditional and non-traditional photographic and light-based genre and media, including mixed media approaches which include a dominant proportion of lens-based elements.
Artists are invited to submit lens-based work that engages:
- Time as subject, symbol, or environment
- The horizon as literal landscape or conceptual threshold
- Distance, duration, memory, or continuity
HONORARIA
Each participating exhibitor will receive a $50 honorarium. The honorarium has no strings attached (other than full participation in the relevant exhibit). It is a modest thank-you for collaborating with us as we chart our future.
$9,000 IN GRAND JURY AWARDS
For our current season the Grand Jury Award format will result in the awarding of $1,000 to one work during each of our nine exhibition periods… see more.
JURY & CURATOR
Manifest’s selection process involves a complex two-part system. This exhibit will be juried by an anonymous several member panel of professional and academic advisors with a broad range of expertise relative to art and design
PUBLICATION
Manifest Press will produce a high quality hard-cover publication documenting each entire season of exhibits, artists, and works shown. This continues Manifest’s commitment to long-term documentation and dissemination of our projects, and the expansion of physical exhibits into a broader geography and time frame, while also bringing all exhibits together under one cover each year to create a better product which will be more valuable to the public, teachers, libraries, and exhibiting artists.
ENTRY FEE
$45 for up to three entries submitted. $5 per each additional entry.
APPLY ONLINE
Visit Manifest Gallery online to Apply.
Notifications sent by email to all entrants by the end of the day July 6, 2026.
SALES
Artworks are not required to be for sale in order to be included in our exhibitions. All work, unless indicated as not for sale (NFS), will be available for sale during exhibit. Manifest Gallery will retain a commission of 30% of the sale price on artwork sold during the exhibition.
INSURANCE
Works will be insured while on gallery premises. Insurance covers theft, vandalism, damage caused by gallery patrons or staff.
Visit Manifest Gallery online for complete details and to Apply.
About:
Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization located in East Walnut Hills in Cincinnati, Ohio. We serve as a venue for the display and experience of insightful, thought provoking art and design, and functions as a hub for creative research and innovation at all levels of artistic endeavor.
Manifest Gallery
2727 Woodburn Avenue
East Walnut Hills
Cincinnati, Ohio 45206
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