Call Description

The past does not sit quietly at the A. R. Mitchell Museum—it hums.

In Resonance 5, that hum becomes a conversation. Drawn from the museum’s archive, A. R. Mitchell’s photographs, once documents of a specific time, place, and eye, are placed into the hands of contemporary artists. Each pairing is an invitation, not an instruction. What follows is not replication, but response.

Mitchell’s images carry the weight of observation: storefronts paused in midday light, figures caught between motion and stillness, landscapes that feel both intimate and expansive. They are fragments of lived experience, composed with a precision that suggests both care and curiosity. Yet in Resonance 5, these photographs are no longer endpoints. They are catalysts.

The artists answer in varied and unexpected ways. Some lean close to Mitchell’s original frame, tracing its contours, amplifying its mood, or teasing out details that might otherwise go unnoticed. Others pull away entirely, using the photograph as a conceptual spark, transforming a fleeting moment into abstraction, narrative, or even critique. Mediums shift. Time collapses. A black-and-white image from decades past might reemerge as a vivid painting, a sculptural form, or a layered mixed-media work that speaks as much to the present as it does to its source.

What binds these works together is not stylistic unity, but a shared act of listening. Each artist engages in a kind of visual dialogue with Mitchell, sometimes harmonious, sometimes dissonant, always attentive. The result is a gallery that feels alive with exchange, where past and present overlap and refract through one another.

Resonance 5 asks viewers to look twice. First at Mitchell’s photographs, then at what they have become in the hands of another. In that space between image and interpretation, something subtle emerges: a recognition that art is not fixed, but continually reimagined. That even an archive, often thought of as static, can be a site of generative energy.

Here, creativity rules the day, but it does so in conversation with history. And in that exchange, both are transformed.

Samples of work are submitted for this call.  Once artists are juried in, the photo archive will be made available.  Artists will then choose an image from a selection of photos from our archives curated for this year's show and create their interpretation of the historic/vintage photo.  

Show date is October 2 - December 31, 2026

Application Requirements

Any medium is accepted.  No AI-generated art will be accepted.  Artists can submit up to four images.  Original work only.

Eligibility Criteria

All artists are eligible to apply