Applicants are invited to apply for the Omaha Central Library for Public Art Fund.
Donor Name: Amplify Arts
State: Iowa, Nebraska
County: Selected Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 08/03/2026
Size of the Grant: Not Available
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
To celebrate the April 2027 first anniversary of Omaha Central Library, OPL is partnering with Amplify Arts and looking for applicants working at the intersection of art and technology to create a new permanent public artwork for Omaha Central Library that sparks public participation and interaction. If your creative practice connects ideas, information, and people through emerging media, creative coding, or other interactive technology, this may be the perfect opportunity for you.
This RFQ is the first phase in selecting one new work for Omaha Central Library’s public art collection. As a part of the RFQ, applicants will be asked to provide the following:
- An Artist Statement that describes how they incorporate technology and interactivity into their work.
- A Work Sample that includes examples of fully realized past work. (Please do not include sketches, mock-ups, renderings, and/or proposals at this stage.)
- A Works Cited page that offers more information about individual works in the Work Sample.
In preparing their application, we invite prospective applicants to consider:
- Community as Something Made, Together Community is not a given—it is something formed over time through shared stories, everyday encounters, and mutual care. The artwork should reflect this layered, collective identity, emphasizing that each person’s presence contributes to a larger whole. It should welcome participation in ways that feel meaningful, playful, and human.
- Libraries as Living Connectors Libraries hold questions. They build bridges across generations and cultures — through books, conversations, and chance meetings. The commissioned work should express the library’s role as a locus of connection, an interstitial space where the expected and unexpected collide in magical, revealing ways.
- Art as a Way of Seeing Art invites us to pause, reflect, and reimagine. This work should offer moments of intellectual and emotional engagement. It should create openings—for delight, for thought, for connection—mirroring the experience of browsing a shelf, stumbling into a conversation, or seeing something familiar in a new light.
Eligibility Criteria
- Any artist, artist collective, or collaborative group maintaining a residence within an 80-mile radius of Omaha, NE is eligible to apply. This includes Audubon, Cass, Crawford, Fremont, Harrison, Mills, Monona, Montgomery, Page, Pottawattamie, and Shelby Counties in Iowa, and Burt, Butler, Cass, Colfax, Cuming, Dakota, Dodge, Douglas, Gage, Johnson, Lancaster, Nemaha, Otoe, Platte, Polk, Saline, Sarpy, Saunders, Seward, Stanton, Thurston, Washington, Wayne, and York Counties in Nebraska.
- The 16 artists selected in Omaha Central Library’s initial call for art are ineligible.
- Limit to one submission per artist, artist collective, or collaborative group.
- Applicants must be at least 19 years old.
- All applicants who meet eligibility requirements and submit a complete application, including an
- Artist Statement, a Work Sample, and Works Cited Page will be considered.
- A formal education is not required to apply.
For more information, visit Amplify Arts.
