O+ Festival Kingston

October 9-11, 2026

Submissions for the 16th Annual O+ Festival are now open!

Applications Open March 20th, 2026 All submissions due by May 1st, 2026 at 11:59p.m.

The O+ Festival is a celebration of art, music and wellness that offers access to health care for participating artists while providing the community with an opportunity to experience the healing and transformative power of art in all its 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 both 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. Click HERE for detailed information on our mission. 

O+ Festival Kingston is now accepting submissions from artists of ALL mediums and modalities including (but not limited to) 2D or 3D visual art, sculpture, temporal work, installation, film, animation, projections, sound-based work, dance, performance and large-scale murals* 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. 

*ATTENTION MURALISTS:  There is now a separate Submittable form for mural proposals and the process has changed in notable ways from previous cycles. PLEASE head back to the O+ Submittable Project page and click on O+ Festival Kingston 2026 MURALS for more information and to submit your mural proposal. 

O+ Festival builds its program around a new theme each year and we ask writers to consider the theme in their proposals. In a time marked by political turbulence and division, art emerges as a potent instrument of the people—a medium through which voices are amplified, dissent is visualized, and collective resilience is forged.

The 2026 O+ Festival theme is MONUMENTS.

O+ Festival 2026 welcomes artists, musicians and writers who approach the theme of monuments as both a question and a form. They resist the singular, the simply heroic, or the permanent. Their work turns toward the work done, sometimes at the margins, that moves everyone forward. The labor of everyday heroes, the persistence of communities often excluded from dominant narratives, the culture of care that sustains life, one person at a time. These are monuments that breathe—temporary, participatory, and permeable–and connect us to the collective.

Learn more about this year’s theme HERE.

Please remember that the festival takes place in traditional and non-conventional venues, both indoor and out. MOST art submissions will be presented in non-traditional venues and we strongly encourage submissions that are site specific, nomadic or amenable to non-traditional or outdoor exhibition, installation or performance spaces. We cannot guarantee the ideal setting for every accepted artist's work, and certainly cannot guarantee traditional gallery or stage/performance space but we will work with you after acceptance to secure a venue for sharing your work that will support its integrity and success within the festival setting. 

*Work that is a collaboration or hybrid between an art medium or modality AND either music or wellness may choose to submit in either the MUSIC, ART or EXPLO+RE WELLNESS category (ExplO+re opens in May). Please do not submit in more than one category.

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. 

You can expect to be notified regarding your submission by mid-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 and the budget we have to produce the work that is accepted. 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 2026 to reapply next year.

A note to O+ Alum: Lower priority may be given to those who participated in the previous four O+ Kingston Festivals (O+ 2025, 2024, 2023 and 2022), though we encourage all to apply. We want to make sure we reach those who have yet to participate and may have a need to acquire care. As our mission is centered in cultivating a diverse community of artists to whom we are offering access to healthcare and to be able to welcome more folks into the year round model of care now available through the O+ Exchange Clinic. 

We continue to expand our model of care through the O+ Exchange Clinic. Through art and wellness programming in that space, we are constantly looking for new ways provide care and opportunities to artists. If you aren’t accepted for this year’s festival, O+ may contact you over the year(s) ahead with additional ways to connect you with O+ and access to care. 

Thank you again for your interest in O+ Festival and support of our mission. 

We look forward to the opportunity to review your submission!

Positively, 

The 2026 O+ Kingston Art Committee

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