2025 BUMP Festival Artist Call
Monday January 6, 2025
Welcome to the ninth year of the BUMP Festival! We are thrilled to announce that artist applications for our 2025 festival are officially open. This year, BUMP is growing in exciting ways—a place for new thought, a testing ground for bold ideas in public art, and a platform where artists can truly push boundaries.
In 2025, we are challenging artists to use the city as their canvas, asking critical questions and experimenting with their practice in conversation with Calgary itself. The festival aims to foster dialogue between artists, public spaces, and the community, creating works that provoke thought, ignite imagination, and transform the urban landscape.
Over the years, the BUMP Festival has evolved into a cornerstone of Calgary’s creative ecosystem, commissioning landmark public art pieces and nurturing a vibrant, inclusive artistic community. For 2025, we are raising the bar even higher, shaping the festival into a hub for pioneering creativity that has the power to reshape our city from the ground up.
We look forward to learning more about you and programming an exciting, boundary-pushing festival this August. For the 2025 Artist Call, we have two streams that require separate submissions; please see below for more details:
2025 Murals
Murals are the core of the BUMP Festival, and a limited number of walls are programmed in August each year. Selected artists are invited to paint in Calgary, bringing their unique style, ideas and experience to the festival. The locations and key details for the murals will be provided to successful candidates. Artists will be assigned to walls with consideration of the artist’s skills and experience, building owner preferences, and the jury’s evaluation of location characteristics. Artists are welcome to work in teams, bring assistants, etc., provided they are also covered by the artists’ insurance.
Artists selected for this stream of the festival have a range of experience in muralism. Newer artists to the medium will be paired with an experienced mentor to assist with learning and overcoming challenges.
2025 Road Works
BUMP Festival developed the Road Works program with help from the City of Calgary to create safer adaptive patios using road infrastructure. The Road Works program creates small-scale public art installations on concrete traffic barriers that are utilized in neighbourhoods across Calgary. Artists selected to be a part of Road Works are given the opportunity to create a series of 2-5 Road Works pieces, which will encourage them to think about art that is functional, playful, and transient in the public realm.
Road Works barriers provide a canvas for artists who like working on unique surfaces. It can be an interesting opportunity to experiment with design and functionality. It can be a way for emerging artists to learn and practice scaling up their work. Painting for the Road Works program will take place in early spring 2024. Only artists local to Calgary will be selected for the Road Works program.
You can apply to both streams of applications.
At BUMP Festival, we value creativity, diversity and talent in artists and encourage artists to approach our festival with creative vigour, thoughtfulness and spark. We are an inclusive project intended to be enjoyed by all classes, genders, cultures, ages and abilities. We strive to create a safe and equitable space for cultural diversity to be celebrated and represented through visual art.
Please read through our complete 2025 Artist RFP documents, which can be found below. These documents contain required information, a link to the application portal and the types of projects you can apply for. Please review the documents carefully to ensure your application satisfies our requirements.
Application Deadline: January 31, 2025, 6:00 PM MST
Please note that due to the volume of applications we receive each year, only successful applicants will be contacted in the spring.