IDLE HANDS
INCUBATION AWARD
Idle Hands invites emerging and mid-career artists based in New York City (all five boroughs eligible) to apply for the Idle Hands Incubation Award, offering a $10,000 unrestricted stipend, professional mentorship, and a culminating exhibition in our Williamsburg, Brooklyn loft space.
Apply Here
Timeframe and Deadline
Spring 2026 Cycle One
- Application Opens: February 27, 2026
- Application Deadline: April 1, 2026 at 11:59 PM EST
- Winner announced: April 23, 2026
- Award Period: May 1- August 2, 2026
- Exhibition / Public Presentation: July 31 – August 2, 2026
Time- Based Media
Theme: Tactility
For this award cycle, Tactility is approached through the lens of time-based media, including film, video, sound, and other durational practices. Within this context, tactility refers to how sensory experience, embodiment, and material presence are conveyed, simulated, or questioned over time.
Artists may engage, but are not limited to, exploring the theme by addressing:
- The relationship between bodies, surfaces, and movement
- Sensory perception beyond the purely visual, including sound, rhythm, and duration
- The translation of physical experience into mediated or recorded formats
- Gesture, labor, repetition, and process as temporal acts
- Haptic illusion, proximity, or friction within moving images or sound
- The memory, absence, or deferred experience of touch
Projects need not involve literal touch or physical materials. Conceptual, abstract, or digitally mediated works are welcome, provided that questions of embodiment, sensory encounter, or material presence unfold through time.
Award Scope of Support and Compensation
Selected artists receive:
- $10,000 USD unrestricted stipend
- Access to Idle Hands professional network for mentorship and dialogue where appropriate
- Exhibition opportunity in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
There is no application fee.
Details:
The Idle Hands Incubation Award offers three primary pillars of support:
1. An unrestricted* stipend of ten thousand USD, disbursed in two installments over a three-month award period.
2. Access, within reason, to the Idle Hands network of artists, curators, technologists, publishers, and producers for dialogue, feedback, and professional exchange. Two studio visits with IH internal team and possible mentors included as part of the award production timeline.
3. Usage of the Idle Hands loft space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at the conclusion of the award period, for an exhibition of work produced over the course of the three months.
- *Unrestricted awards are provided without required deliverables or prescribed outcomes, other than an exhibition and/or public presentation of work produced during the award period. Artists retain full creative autonomy and ownership of all intellectual property.
- *Funds are disbursed in two installments:
Round 1: at start of award period
Round 2: at mid-point studio visit
- *The Idle Hands Incubation Award is not operating as a 501(c)(3) organization. Award funds are distributed as private gifts, structured to remain below the applicable U.S. gift tax threshold of USD 19,000 (as of 2025).
- *Idle Hands requests non-exclusive rights to reproduce and use images, video, and related documentation of the work for purposes of publicity and promotion across Idle Hands’ website, social media channels, email communications, and related materials, with full artist credit provided whenever such materials are used.
Eligibility and Application Criteria
For the inaugural year, Idle Hands will accept applications exclusively from artists based in the New York City metropolitan area.
- Artist collectives, including duos and trios, are eligible to apply; however, the award stipend remains a single, shared amount regardless of the number of participants.
- There is no limit to the number of times an artist or collective may apply. Artists who have previously received an Idle Hands Incubation Award must wait three years before reapplying.
On-site Support
- Access to Idle Hands Williamsburg loft space during on-site production period
Two scheduled studio visits with Idle Hands and/or mentor committee - Technical and logistical support for exhibition installation (within reason)
- Small rotating production team for exhibition coordination