Call for Proposals: ARTs + Change 2027 Virtual Conference
Activate. Reimagine. Transform.
Artists, educators, community members, and organizations: we want to hear your ideas exploring performance, pedagogy, activist, art, community engagement, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding. Submit your proposal for the 2027 ARTs + Change Virtual Conference now through October 1!
—Proposals due by: October 1, 2026 (free to apply!)
—Applicants notified by: November 1, 2026 (accepted presenters receive a modest honorarium)
—Conference Dates: February 10-14, 2027 (fully virtual)
Together, we’ll ask:
- How are you crafting open, welcoming and diverse curriculums?
- How are you engaging in art, action and/or changemaking?
- How do equity, justice and performance intersect?
- How are artists reimagining the world we occupy?
- How does creative placemaking impact our communities?
- How are you challenging systems of oppression through your work, your teaching, your practices?
- What other questions have come up for you?
Questions? Contact ur.ipa@rochester.edu
To learn more or explore our archive of past presenters and proposals, visit our website.
About ARTs + Change
ARTs + Change is a virtual conference that provides opportunities for artists of all disciplines, educators, community members, and community organizations to come together to create, to share work and ideas, to present research, to propose collaborations. We invite participants to learn from one another while considering how the arts play a pivotal role in promoting justice, equity, and citizenship. Through the sharing of work, participatory workshops, panel discussions, research presentations, curriculum design, guided discussions, and more, participants will come together to listen, to consider, to share, and to act. We invite proposals from presenters who are exploring performance, pedagogy, activist art, direct action, community-engaged art, ritual, conflict resolution, agitation art, peacebuilding, historical contexts, and more.
ARTs + Change is hosted by the University of Rochester Institute for the Performing Arts. This event is made possible with the support of our co-sponsors: the University of Rochester Art & Art History Department, International Theatre Program, Create A Space Now, and the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival.
Featured origami artwork by student artist Alyssa Cai. “Wishing Cranes” (2026) features 50 purple cranes with affirmations in unexpected places, blending personal ritual with acts of kindness to inspire unexpected joy.