By transcending conventional boundaries — between art forms and across disciplines — the Notre Dame Arts Initiative mobilizes the transformative power of the arts to advance knowledge, invigorate learning, and foster human solidarity.
The Arts Initiative supports research and creative practice that builds upon Notre Dame's pre-existing strengths and inspires new directions for artistic inquiry and creative expression in our region. The initiative catalyzes work that exceeds the bounds of any single discipline and encourages projects that collaboratively move across theory, history, and practice. By doing so, the initiative nurtures a robust arts community interested in creative exchange and capable of producing innovative arts scholarship.
The Notre Dame Arts Initiative invites regional venues, including campus venues at Notre Dame and other schools, to join the Venue Activation List. This list functions as an ongoing roster of venues interested in providing in-kind use of their space for public arts programming connected to the biennial. The Arts Initiative will hold submissions for a period of two biennials (or four years) and will reach out as projects arise that may be a good fit both thematically and logistically.
Although the Notre Dame Arts Biennial is new, there are many artists, arts organizations, and arts supporters within and beyond Notre Dame's community who regularly plan performances, exhibitions, and other arts-related events open to the public. If you have relevant programming that will occur between January and June 2027, you are encouraged to apply for your event to become part of the larger Biennial Network. The network will provide cross-promotional amplification to strengthen the local and global arts ecosystem that anchors the biennial.
If selected, applicants will have a brief consultation with Arts Initiative staff to discuss a plan for cross-promotion and to receive relevant biennial marketing materials. The full calendar of Biennial Network activities will also be available online.
Activities within the Biennial Network are selected and recognized by the Notre Dame Arts Biennial but are independently organized. Use of either party’s names, logos, or marks requires prior written approval and compliance with brand guidelines.