“So complete is each neighborhood, and so strong the sense of neighborhood, that many a New Yorker spends a lifetime within the confines of an area smaller than a country village. Let him walk two blocks from his corner and he is in a strange land and will feel uneasy till he gets back.” — E.B. White, Here Is New York
Soft Map of NYC is an open call for artists living or working in New York City. From this call, 26 artists will be selected and invited to photograph their own neighborhood using a Polaroid camera.
Across 2026, each artist will take a one-week turn creating a small suite of Polaroid images grounded in tenderness, attention, and the emotional textures of place. Every other week, three of their photographs will be released for sale on a split commission. The remaining images from their roll of eight will form the basis of a 2027 exhibition and publication with Bad Saturn, together creating a soft, analog map of New York City.
Rather than documenting the city in any traditional sense, Soft Map of NYC gathers images of sensation, an affective cartography of intimacy, stillness, and connection. The project extends the methodology of Michèle Saint-Michel’s A Map of All My Tender Places (forthcoming, Bloomsbury 2026), approaching photography as relic and ritual, capable of carrying emotion in its surface and imperfections.
While many lens-based artists are expected to apply, the call is open to all practices that treat tenderness as method and attention as a form of care, including performance, sound, text, and interdisciplinary work.
Submissions open Friday, November 14, 2025, and close Wednesday, January 1, 2026.
Open to artists living or working in any of the five boroughs.
Submission fee: $15 supports materials, scanning, production, and admin.
To apply: Submit your name, borough, neighborhood, short bio, link to work, and a 150-word reflection on where tenderness lives for you in the city.
Artists retain full copyright. By participating, they grant non-exclusive rights for exhibition, publication, and promotional use with credit.
Soft Map of NYC is curated by Michèle Saint-Michel, film curator and artist whose work engages tenderness as method, somatic memory, and the quiet intensities of the everyday.
For inquiries: michelesaintmichel@gmail.com
Current Open Calls
Jouissance: Due Feb 1
Soft Map of NYC: Due Jan 1