Hidden Hands

The Stedman Gallery of Rutgers–Camden Center for the Arts is pleased to announce a regional call for submissions of visual art of all mediums for the exhibition Hidden Hands.
https://rcca.camden.rutgers.edu/hidden-hands/


Theme
Rutgers–Camden Center for the Arts invites visual artists to create work that engages with housing injustice and the forces that shape where and how people live. We are seeking contemporary visual art in any visual medium that explores housing affordability, displacement, corporate property ownership, neighborhood change, economic inequality, disinvestment, community stability, or related questions about access to safe, stable, and equitable housing.
The exhibition is inspired by Hidden Hands, an urgent research project by Rutgers–Camden’s Center for Urban Research and Education (CURE) examining corporate housing in Camden, New Jersey, and how residents are impacted when corporations own housing in their neighborhoods.
Artists do not need to make work specifically about Camden. We invite artists to consider how housing injustice manifests in their own communities and throughout the United States. Work may address housing directly or approach these questions through personal experience, history, research, metaphor, abstraction, speculation, or other conceptual strategies. We are interested in how artists can make visible the systems, experiences, inequalities, and human consequences that shape our homes and communities.
Artists are invited to consider questions such as:
Who gets to own a home? Who gets to profit from housing? What happens when housing becomes an investment rather than a home? Who has the power to shape a neighborhood? What does displacement look and feel like? What makes a place a home, and what happens when that sense of home is threatened?


Jurors:
Erik James Montgomery
Elizabeth Demaray
Dr. Stephen Danley


Exhibition Requirements
Concept
-Work must conceptually connect to the exhibition theme.

Work Requirements
-Work must be original in concept and execution.
-Work is finalized and available for the transport dates and full exhibition run.
-Work in any visual medium.

Quantity
-Up to 7 works may be submitted.

Installation-Ready Work
-Work must be suitably prepared for installation with instructions.

Fees
-$10 registration fee. Entry fee must be paid with credit card on the SlideRoom website and is nonrefundable.
-Selected artists will receive a stipend for a portion of the shipping costs. Artists are responsible for the shipment of their works to and from the gallery with the dates provided by RCCA staff. Shipped artwork is covered by Rutgers insurance, unless it is shipped in cardboard boxes. Selected artists may coordinate hand-delivering with RCCA staff.

Entry Process
-All entries are submitted through SlideRoom: https://rucvmpa.slideroom.com/#/login/program/90903

Artists will submit the following information:
-Original, high-res image files of artwork.
-Artwork title, medium, dimensions, year.
-Conceptual description of artwork (optional).
-Artist Statement (Max. 250 words).
-Artist CV.

Artists are:
-18 years or older
-Residing in the Mid-Atlantic region: Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
-Not presently enrolled in an undergraduate program

We welcome established and emerging artists and encourage diverse approaches to the subject. Artists are not expected to be experts in housing policy or urban planning. The research provided with this call is intended as a point of departure and invitation to think, question, interpret, and respond through artistic practice.


Calendar
September 25, 2026- February 5, 2027
Entries accepted through Slideroom: https://rucvmpa.slideroom.com/#/login/program/90903

April-May 2027
Jury results will be emailed.

First two weeks of August 2027
The artist ships or delivers accepted work to the Stedman Gallery located in Camden, NJ. The artist will coordinate with RCCA staff to make professional shipping arrangements.

Thursday, September 23, 2027
Exhibition Opening Reception

August 31-December 11, 2027
Exhibition run. A complete list of programs will be available on the exhibition website, RCCA social media platforms, and newsletter as soon as confirmed. Artists selected to exhibit may be asked to participate in gallery programming.

December 15-17, 2027
Work shipped back to artists or must be picked up by December 17, 2027.


About Hidden Hands
Hidden Hands is a research project by Rutgers–Camden’s Center for Urban Research and Education (CURE) examining corporate housing ownership in Camden, New Jersey, and how residents are impacted when corporations own housing in their neighborhoods.
Camden is a predominantly Black and Latino city of approximately 70,000 people, located just across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. The city has experienced decades of disinvestment, deindustrialization, high poverty, limited homeownership, and barriers to building household and generational wealth. These conditions make the question of who owns housing—and who benefits from its value—especially important.
CURE’s research finds that a significant amount of Camden’s residential property is owned by LLCs and other corporate entities. Investors are attracted to lower-cost properties because they offer relatively inexpensive entry into the housing market, the potential for rental income, and opportunities for long-term financial gain. At the same time, residents can experience housing instability, poor housing conditions, displacement pressures, and fewer opportunities to become homeowners and build wealth themselves.
The research also documents “hockey teeth” blocks—Camden streets where rowhouses have been demolished after years of neglect, leaving empty gaps that resemble missing teeth. These landscapes are physical evidence of decades of disinvestment and housing abandonment. They demonstrate how the consequences of housing policy and investment decisions remain visible in the built environment and affect the people who live there.
At the center of Hidden Hands is a fundamental question of housing justice: housing is essential to people's lives, but the financial benefits of housing investment do not necessarily accrue to the people who live in these communities. When homes are treated primarily as financial assets, residents can have less control over their neighborhoods while investors gain wealth from them. Corporate ownership, opaque LLC structures, absentee ownership, neglected properties, and barriers to homeownership can make it difficult for residents and local governments to identify responsibility, demand accountability, and create effective policy solutions.
Although the research focuses on Camden, the questions it raises extend far beyond one city. Across the United States, communities are confronting rising rents, declining housing affordability, displacement, vacant and deteriorating properties, increasingly concentrated corporate property ownership, and growing barriers to homeownership. Hidden Hands asks us to consider who has the power to shape our communities, who benefits from housing investment, and whose needs are left out of the equation.

Review the full CURE reports: https://cure.camden.rutgers.edu/