CISTA ARTS invites artists worldwide to submit work for States of Exposure, an online group exhibition exploring visibility, vulnerability, revelation, and the shifting conditions through which contemporary experience is negotiated.

States of Exposure

CISTA ARTS invites artists to submit work for its upcoming online group exhibition, States of Exposure.

States of Exposure explores visibility, vulnerability, pressure, and revelation across personal, social, environmental, and material conditions.

The exhibition invites artists to consider exposure not simply as disclosure, but as a shifting state that can illuminate, unsettle, transform, or destabilise.

Open to broad interpretations and all visual media, the exhibition welcomes works engaging with presence, concealment, fragility, tension, endurance, and the changing conditions of contemporary experience.
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Exposure is often associated with visibility — with bringing something into the light. Yet exposure can also unsettle, exhaust, intensify, or transform. It may reveal what was hidden, but it can equally leave things vulnerable, unstable, or altered beyond recognition.

States of Exposure brings together works that engage with conditions of openness, pressure, and revelation across personal, material, environmental, and social dimensions.

The exhibition considers exposure not as a singular moment, but as an ongoing state: a condition through which bodies, landscapes, memories, systems, and identities are continually shaped and reshaped.

Within the heightened atmosphere of contemporary life — marked by constant visibility, accelerated circulation, ecological precarity, and emotional intensity — exposure becomes both unavoidable and unevenly experienced.

Some forms of exposure produce connection and recognition; others generate fragility, surveillance, displacement, or fatigue. Between concealment and disclosure, protection and vulnerability, the works in this exhibition trace the unstable boundaries through which experience is negotiated.

Artists are invited to approach the theme expansively.

Exposure may emerge through material deterioration, fragmented narratives, atmospheric tension, digital mediation, bodily presence, political realities, architectural space, or shifting environmental conditions.

It may appear in acts of resistance and endurance, or in quieter gestures of intimacy, sensitivity, and perception.

Rather than offering resolution, States of Exposure dwells within conditions of uncertainty and transition. It attends to what surfaces under pressure, what remains visible after rupture, and what continues to insist on presence despite erasure, saturation, or concealment.

Dates:

Submission Deadline: 20 June 2026
Exhibition Dates: 1- 30 July 2026

Submission Guidelines:

We are keen to learn about you! Please submit the following:

• Contact information (full name, email, mobile)

• Details of the artworks (title, size, medium, year, price)

• Artist statement (max 100 words on how your work relates to the theme)

• Short biography (max 100 words, third-person)

• Up to 4 sample images of your work

Please note: Only two artworks per artist will be selected for exhibition.

Selected Participants Will Receive:

• Exhibition of your work on the CISTA ARTS online platform (1-30 July 2026)

• Inclusion in a professionally produced paperback catalogue (UK-based) + complimentary PDF copy

• No commission taken on sales

• Daily social media features in our Meet the Artist series

• Exhibition placement on our homepage + archived access after close

• Direct links to your website or social media in all features

• Certificate of participation

Participation Fee: 

£30 for one accepted artwork | £50 for two accepted artworks

Applying to this exhibition opportunity is free.

Participation Fee Benefits:

Selected artists will have their work exhibited online for the full month on our homepage, included in a professionally produced printed and digital exhibition catalogue, featured in daily social media promotion under our ‘Meet the Artist’ series, and receive a certificate of participation. 

CISTA ARTS takes no commission on sales.

Digital Exposure and Reach:

• We currently have over 12.1K followers on Instagram, in addition to a Facebook audience and a mailing list of over 2K subscribers.
• Our online exhibitions attract between 1,200–1,800 unique visitors, and our website receives more than 4,000 visits per month.

• Each participating artist will be permanently featured on our Past Exhibitions page, with direct links to their own website or social media for continued exposure.

Exhibition Access:

The exhibition is fully accessible to the public via our official website, with no login or fee required.

Exhibition History:

Since our founding in 2018, CISTA ARTS has organised over 50 solo and group exhibitions, both online and in hybrid formats. 

Our platform is designed to support emerging and mid-career artists across borders, particularly those facing visa and mobility restrictions.

Artist Feedback:

We have received consistently positive reviews from artists who have worked with us, with many praising our professionalism, communication, and the quality of our exhibitions. 

These testimonials can be viewed on our Google Reviews page.

About Us:

Based in London, CISTA ARTS is an independent, artist-led curatorial platform dedicated to inclusive programming, cross-cultural dialogue, and supporting underrepresented voices in contemporary visual art.