Art + Science Competition 2026: States of Change
Due October 9, 2026
For the Art + Science Competition entitled States of Change, we would like to see photography that examines transition, transformation, and instability within lived experience. Change may be gradual or abrupt, visible or difficult to perceive, ranging from emotional shifts to environmental conditions. We invite artists to consider how photography can reveal states of change—where boundaries are not fixed and conditions are continually shifting.
Awards
1st Place — $500
2nd Place — $300
3rd Place — $200
+ Two Honorable Mentions
Jurors
Linda Alterwitz
Linda Alterwitz (American, b. 1960) is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in photography. Her practice explores unseen relationships between the human body, technology, and the natural world, using art as a catalyst for dialogue around perception, interconnectedness, and environmental and societal change. Integrating scientific inquiry with photographic processes, her work investigates the visible and invisible systems that shape human experience.
Her project Injection Site was first exhibited in 2023 at the Front Door Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno, and at The Center, Las Vegas. In 2025, the series was exhibited at the FORMAT International Photography Festival in Derby, United Kingdom, where Alterwitz also presented a conference paper. The project received a Nevada Arts Council Fellowship, with additional 2026 exhibitions scheduled at the College of Southern Nevada and the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University.
Alterwitz has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including the Museum of Art & History, Lancaster, California (as part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, a Getty initiative); the Barrick Museum of Art, Las Vegas; the Hilliard Art Museum, Lafayette, Louisiana; the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe; the Yixian Photography Festival, China; and Ring Cube Gallery, Tokyo.
Her work is held in numerous permanent collections, including the Center for Creative Photography; Getty Research Institute; Nevada Museum of Art – Institute for Art + Environment; Santa Barbara Museum of Art Library; Rochester Institute of Technology; and the Barrick Museum of Art.
Alterwitz’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, Orion Magazine, Lenscratch, and Musée Magazine, among others. She has received awards and residencies from organizations including the Nevada Arts Council, Puffin Foundation, Healthy Communities Coalition, and the Mayo Clinic. She lives and works in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ben Hickey
Ben Hickey is the Executive Director for the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts in Buffalo, New York. Previously he was curator of exhibitions and Emily Cyr Bridges Endowed Professor of Art at the Hilliard Art Museum on the campus of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. With over one hundred exhibition credits, artists he has exhibited include Brian Kelly of the Marais Press, Letitia Huckaby, L. Kasimu Harris, Robert C. Tannen, Richard Landry, Pat Phillips, Sonya Clark, Hasan Elahi, Dawoud Bey, and James Surls.
Hickey’s most recent writing can be found in Beili Liu: Mend, a monograph published by the Art League Houston in celebration of Liu’s 2024 Texas Artist of the Year Award. Other essayists include Bridget Bray, Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Eddie Chambers, Katie Pfohl, and Kay Whitney.
In 2023 Hickey received a Samuel H. Kress Foundation Travel Grant to co-present research related to Marais Press on-campus collaborations at the 51st Annual Art Libraries Society of North America in Mexico City. Earlier in his career, he presented Reshaping Our Programming: The Artist in Residence Program at the New York Historical Society in conjunction with an Association of Art Museum Curators annual conference. He has also served as a panelist or consultant for Villa Albertine, the Joan Mitchell Center, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, PhotoNOLA, and the San Antonio Art League.
Earlier in his career, Hickey held positions at the Masur Museum of Art, California Museum of Photography, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, and the Arts Council of Buffalo & Erie County. He is an active member of the Association of Art Museum Curators, having served as a trustee from 2015 to 2020. He earned his master’s in art history from the University of California Riverside and his bachelor’s in history from Canisius University.
