Open Call: ATH Magazine 15 Explores the Theme “Where I Am”

There are places we can point to on a map. There are places we carry with us. And then there are the places that are much harder to explain. The place we find ourselves in after a big change. The place between who we were and who we are becoming. The place that feels like home, even when it is thousands of miles away from where we live. The place inside a memory that we return to again and again.

Sometimes, we know exactly where we are. Sometimes, we are still figuring it out. And sometimes, the easiest way to explain it is to make something.

That is the feeling behind Where I Am, the theme of Arts to Hearts Magazine 15, a new edition created in collaboration with Arts to Hearts Project and StudioToGallery and now open for submissions from artists around the world.

This time, we are asking a simple question with so many possible answers: Where are you right now?

Not just geographically. But creatively. Emotionally. Personally. Historically. Spiritually. Visually. Wherever you are, we want to see what that place looks like through your work.

A New Chapter For Arts To Hearts Magazine

Our first Arts to Hearts Magazine began in 2022. Since then, the magazine has grown into something that feels very close to our hearts. With every edition, we have had the privilege of discovering artists from different countries, different backgrounds, different creative practices, and completely different stages of their journeys.

Four years later, we are preparing for Magazine 15. Fifteen editions is something we do not take lightly. Behind every issue are hundreds of artworks, artist stories, conversations, submissions, emails, decisions, edits, late nights, and, most importantly, the trust artists place in us when they share their work.

The love we have received for these magazines over the years has meant so much to us. Every time an artist tells us that being part of an edition gave them a new connection, helped them reach someone new, or simply made them feel seen, it reminds us why we started doing this in the first place.

And we are so excited to do it all over again.

For every edition, we want the magazine to feel like more than a collection of beautiful images. We want it to become a record of the artists making work today. A place where different voices can exist alongside one another, where a quiet painting can sit beside a bold installation, where a new artist can appear alongside someone who has been creating for decades.

As with previous editions, submissions will go through a juried selection process, and the selected artists will have the opportunity to be featured in the magazine. The edition will also include a $500 cash award for the winner.

And now, we are ready to discover the artists who will help us tell the story of Issue 15.

So, Where Are You?

The beautiful thing about this theme is that there is no single way to answer it. Perhaps you are painting the city you live in. Perhaps you are photographing the house you grew up in. Perhaps you are making work about migration, memory, family, culture, identity, belonging, or displacement. Perhaps you are somewhere completely different from where you imagined you would be. Or perhaps your work has nothing to do with a physical place at all.

Maybe you are in the middle of a personal transformation. Maybe you are learning to see yourself differently. Maybe you are beginning your artistic career and trying to understand what kind of artist you want to become. Maybe you have been creating for years and have reached a moment where your work is changing again.

Maybe you are simply paying attention to your everyday life in a way you never have before. Where I Am gives you room for all of it. Because “where” can be a location, but it can also be a feeling. It can be a memory. A relationship. A culture. A season of life. A question. A loss. A beginning. A home. Or even a state of mind.

Artist Beverly Buchanan once described home as what she had established and where she was, wherever that might be. Her words beautifully capture the flexibility of the idea. Home does not always have one address. Sometimes it is something we build around ourselves. Sometimes it is something we remember. Sometimes it changes as we do.

And art has a remarkable way of recording those changes.

Art As A Record Of Where We Are

Think about the art you have already made. There may be a painting that immediately takes you back to a particular year. A photograph that reminds you of a person you no longer see.

A sculpture that grew out of a difficult period. A textile piece connected to your family or cultural history. An illustration inspired by something you noticed on an ordinary afternoon. A series that began when you were trying to understand something you could not quite put into words.

The work may have been made years ago, but it can still tell us where you were when you created it. That is one of the things we love most about art. It remembers. An artwork can hold a version of you that no longer exists in exactly the same way.

It can preserve the colours you were drawn to at a particular time, the places you were looking at, the questions you were asking, the people you were thinking about, or simply the way the world felt from where you were standing.

Artist Aïda Muluneh has explored this idea of place and identity throughout her photographic practice. Her series This Is Where I Am, commissioned by the Public Art Fund, drew on her experiences as an Ethiopian woman and immigrant, using carefully constructed imagery and symbolism to reflect on history, identity, resilience, and belonging.

Her work is a beautiful reminder that a place can carry layers of meaning. A country can be a memory. A city can be an identity. A photograph can become a conversation between where you came from and where you are now. And your own work can do the same.

Where You Are In Your Creative Journey

We also love that Where I Am can mean something completely different depending on where you are in your career.

For an emerging artist, the theme might be about finding your voice. You might be asking yourself what kind of work you want to make, what stories you want to tell, or what it means to finally call yourself an artist.

For an artist who has been creating for several years, perhaps you are in a period of experimentation. Your work may be changing. Your materials may be changing. Your relationship with your practice may be changing.

For an established artist, “where I am” might mean looking back at everything that has brought you here while thinking about what comes next. And there is something beautiful about allowing all of those moments to exist together. You do not have to be at a particular stage of your career to have something meaningful to say. You do not need to have everything figured out.

In fact, you might be making your most honest work precisely because you are still figuring things out.

The National Gallery of Art recently explored a similar idea through Romare Bearden’s Tomorrow I May Be Far Away, discussing how art can meet us differently depending on where we are in our own lives. As artist and pianist Lara Downes reflected, a work can reveal new layers when we return to it years later because we have changed too. That is the beauty of making art. The work changes because we change.

Every Medium Has A Place Here

We do not want this conversation to belong to one kind of artist. Where I Am is open to different creative practices and ways of making.

• You might respond through painting, using colour, gesture, figures, landscapes, interiors, abstraction, or anything in between.
• You might choose photography, capturing a person, a place, an object, or a fleeting moment.
• You might work in sculpture or ceramics, giving physical form to an idea, memory, relationship, or experience.
• You might work with textiles, carrying stories through fabric, pattern, stitching, material, and touch.
• You might create an illustration, building an imagined world or documenting something very real.
• You might make an installation, creating an environment that asks viewers to step inside your perspective.

There is no particular visual language that this theme demands. Your work can be figurative or abstract. Quiet or loud. Minimal or layered. Personal or universal. 

What Artists Can Expect

Being selected for Arts to Hearts Magazine 15 means becoming part of a global cohort of 100 artists whose work will be featured in the 15th edition of the magazine.

Each selected artist will receive a dedicated two-page feature including their artwork, professionally prepared interview, artist information, and links to their website and social platforms. The issue will be distributed internationally through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other global channels, giving artists a published feature they can add to their CV, portfolio, website, and press materials.

But the opportunity goes beyond the pages of the magazine. Selected artists will be included in the Issue 15 PR and marketing campaign, with promotion across the Arts to Hearts digital platforms, reaching a combined audience of 500,000+, as well as communications to 100,000+ email subscribers. Every selected artist will also receive an official Issue 15 certificate and recognition as part of the edition.

And this year, through the collaboration between Arts to Hearts Project × StudioToGallery, there is an additional layer of recognition.

From the 100 selected artists, 10 artists will be chosen for the Top 10, receiving additional visibility and an exclusive mentorship session with Charuka Arora and Sonia Borrell, with consideration for the final Top 3.

The Top 3 artists will receive further recognition, including StudioToGallery membership, physical trophies and certificates. The Cash Award Winner will also receive a $500 cash award and a four-page feature in Issue 15, while the 1st and 2nd Runner-Ups will receive two-page features alongside their respective recognitions.

But perhaps the most meaningful part of this opportunity is still the simplest one.

To have your work seen.

To place it within a larger conversation.

To pause for a moment and look at where you are in your creative journey, and to share that place with others through the work you have made.

Because wherever you are right now, your perspective is worth making room for.

Submit To Magazine 15: Where I Am

If Where I Am makes you think of a piece already sitting in your studio, this might be the right time to bring it out into the world.

Artists from around the world are invited to submit their work for Arts to Hearts Magazine Issue 15.

Choose the work that feels connected to your own interpretation of the theme. It can speak about place, memory, culture, belonging, identity, everyday life, relationships, change, or simply the particular moment you find yourself in today.

The submission deadline is October 5, 2026.

Take your time with your submission. Think about the work you want to share and why it belongs in this conversation.

Because there is no perfect answer to the question Where I Am.

There is only your answer. Your history. Your surroundings. Your memories. Your imagination. Your questions. Your work.

Four years after we began this journey with our very first magazine, we are incredibly excited to open the doors for Issue 15 and discover where artists are creating from today.

Maybe you are at home. Maybe you are far away. Maybe you are starting over. Maybe you are exactly where you hoped you would be. Maybe you are still finding your way.

Wherever that place is, we would love to see it. Show us where you are.