Call for Artists: Before We Were Happy

CALL FOR ART: Before We Were Happy

New York Mills Regional Cultural Center’s Annual Adult Regional Art Show

Exhibition Theme
Before We Were Happy explores a persistent American idea: that happiness once came more easily, before modern ambition, speed, and pursuit culture. This exhibition interrogates nostalgia as both comfort and myth, asking whether the past truly held greater happiness—or whether that belief obscures exclusion, inequality, and selective memory.

This exhibition is a visual response to the 2026 Great American Think-Off question:
Has the pursuit of happiness made Americans unhappy?

Artists are invited to respond to the tension between nostalgia and myth, examining how ideas of happiness are constructed, remembered, inherited, or resisted.

Conceptual Framework

This exhibition seeks work engaging with one or more of the following perspectives:

Affirmative Approaches (Questioning the Past):

• Sepia-toned irony and aestheticized memory
• Idealized histories revealed as incomplete, exclusionary, or false
• Happiness portrayed as a privilege granted to some and denied to others
• Domestic, cultural, or national myths unraveled

Counterpoint Approaches (Challenging Nostalgia):

• Exposing nostalgia as emotional refuge or denial
• Progress shown as expanding access to happiness and self-determination
• Joy emerging through struggle, resistance, or social change
• Reimagining happiness as dynamic rather than lost

Works do not need to declare a position. Ambiguity, contradiction, and unresolved tension are welcome.

Media
All visual art forms are encouraged, including:

• Painting, drawing, photography, and mixed media
• Sculpture and installation

Submission Guidelines

• Artists may submit up to two (2) works
• All accepted works must be framed and ready to display
• 1–2 images per submission
• Artist statement (optional but encouraged), up to 250 words
• Artist bio (optional but encouraged), up to 100 words
• Medium, dimensions, and year of creation

Selection Criteria
Works will be selected based on:

• Conceptual engagement with the theme
• Originality and clarity of vision
• Emotional, historical, or critical depth
• Craft and execution

Exhibition Details
Venue: New York Mills Regional Cultural Center
Location: New York Mills, Minnesota
Exhibition Dates: May 26 – July 4

Key Question for Artists
Was happiness something we lost—or something we were never all allowed to have?

Submission Deadline
Artwork can be dropped off during regular business hours from May 19-May 22

Submit To:

New York Mills Regional Cultural Center

24 N Main Avenue / P.O. Box 246

New York Mills, MN 56567

For questions, contact:
info@kulcher.org or call 218-385-3339

We welcome work that challenges memory, complicates longing, and reconsiders what happiness has meant—and might still mean—in the American imagination.