O+ Festival Kingston

October 11-13, 2024

Submissions for the 14th Annual O+ Festival are now open!

Applications Open March 4th, 2024
All submissions due by April 28th, 2024 at 11:59p.m.

The O+ Festival is a celebration of art, music and wellness that offers access to health care for its participating artists and musicians while providing the community with an opportunity to experience the healing and transformative power of art in all forms. O+ (pronounced Oh Positive) fosters physical, mental and social well-being by connecting visual artists and musicians directly with a coalition of healthcare/wellness providers and resources in a shared vision to nurture the individual and the community. By exchanging the art of medicine for the medicine of art, O+ empowers communities to take control of their collective wellbeing.

O+ Festival Kingston is now accepting submissions from artists of ALL mediums and modalities including (but not limited to) 2D or 3D visual art, large-scale murals, sculpture, temporal work, installation, film, animation, projections, sound-based work, dance and performance in public spaces to transform the city into a shared art experience. The O+ Art Committee aims to curate work that contributes to or reflects the meaningful juxtaposition between Kingston’s dynamic, multicultural neighborhood communities and compelling, radical, relevant contemporary artwork. 

O+ Festival builds its program around a new theme each year and we invite artists to respond to the theme in their proposals. In this year of consequential electoral politics, protest, war, disinformation, oversaturation and overstimulation we are seeking to examine, engage with and transcend the noise of our humanity.

This year’s’ O+ Festival explores the duality of NOISE.  
 Within noise lies the potential for both disruption and innovation, discord and harmony. At once, noise has the capacity to uplift, inspire, and unite as well as to be used to disrupt or distract us from what is real or distance us from the sounds of our own minds. Noise can be righteous, insistent, a catalyst for profound transformation, a source of creativity, and a vehicle for social change. Through embracing the richness of noise in all its forms, we seek to foster a deeper understanding of the complex interplay between individual expression and collective experience. 

We are calling artists, musicians and writers of all mediums, genres and modalities to explore the paradoxical nature of noise and its role in shaping our shared human experience. From vibrant murals that capture the pulse and persistence of life on a grand scale to immersive, intimate soundscapes that invite contemplation, to drum beats, exclamations, collective exhales and shared silence, we hope to build a symphony of noise– full of the beauty, dissonance, harmony and resonance, chaos, silence and amplification - in order to reframe noise not as a disturbance, but as a vibrant force of empowerment, positivity, liberation and connection from which deeper truths can emerge. Learn more about this year’s theme HERE.

All submissions will be reviewed, and the festival art program will be curated, by the O+ Art Committee - a group of O+ alumni, practitioners, industry professionals, and community members representing different practices, identities and perspectives. Accepted submissions will be invited to participate at this year’s festival in exchange for access to care in the O+ Artists’ Clinic.

Please remember that the festival takes place in traditional and non-conventional venues, both indoor and out. While there will be opportunities for more traditionally exhibited work we strongly encourage submissions that are site specific, nomadic or amenable to non-traditional/outdoor exhibition, installation or performance spaces. We cannot guarantee the setting for every accepted artist's work but we will work with 

*Work that is a collaboration or hybrid between visual art/movement and music or art/wellness may choose to submit in either category. Please do not submit in more than one category.

Click HERE for detailed information on our mission. You can expect to be notified regarding your submission by the beginning of June. This year, we expect to receive hundreds of submissions for a finite number of artist slots. Capacity is determined, in large part, by the amount of care we are able to provide at our clinic during the festival weekend. We ask for your patience and understanding should your submission not be accepted for this year and encourage all who are not chosen for O+ Festival 2024 to reapply next year.

A NOTE TO MURALISTS: The O+ Mural Program has grown significantly over the last decade and we now have approximately 60 existing murals in the Kingston area alone. Our focus when pursuing walls for murals is finding the right context for selected artists and their proposed concepts. Beyond the quality of the work, we also have to consider what walls are available, what wall owner preferences are, city and historic area regulations, neighbors of a given location, representation and more. We will hustle to find the best possible wall for your work if it is selected but cannot promise artists their ideal/preferred location or surface quality and ask that artists who are selected remain open to producing their work in the locations available to us. 

A note to O+ Art Alum: We may give lower priority to artists who participated in the previous three O+ Kingston Festivals, though we encourage all to apply. As our mission is centered in cultivating a diverse community of artists to whom we are offering access to healthcare, we want to make sure we reach those who have yet to participate and may have a need to acquire care.

We are currently expanding our art programming towards a year-round model, as we are constantly looking for new ways provide care to artists. If you aren’t accepted for this year’s festival, you may be contacted over the next year if there are other ways to connect with O+. We thank you in advance for your understanding. 

If you're interested in volunteering for a free festival wristband or in exchange for a clinic visit please click HERE
Thank you for your interest in O+ Festival and our mission.
We look forward to the opportunity to review your submission!

Positively,
The 2024 O+ KINGSTON Art Committee

Please do not let any barriers, personal, perceived or technical, get in the way of submitting your work. Please reach out to us for assistance in applying if you need support of any kind. Contact info@opositivefestival.org or call (845) 399-5343 for assistance.