Improvements for 2026 Jamaica Visual Arts Competition

The Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) is preparing to launch the 2026 Jamaica Visual Arts Competition with a series of improvements designed to better support artists and strengthen the overall submission process.

Visual Arts Development Specialist at the JCDC, Dr. Winston Campbell, told JIS News that the aim is to ensure that entrants are better able to capitalise on the opportunity presented by the competition.

One of the key developments for 2026 is a revised competition handbook, now in its final stages of editing.

“The handbook presents improvements in terms of the illustrations that are present in this handbook. The handbook illustrates, for example, the new site guidelines that will govern this year’s competition for both youth and adult artists,” he said.

“[It] adds clearer definitions of the creative disciplines, [and] we have a blurb for each of the creative areas that entrants can submit works for and these are all accompanied with images from the last two competition cycles,” Dr. Campbell added.

The handbook also introduces illustrated registration and submission steps to help entrants navigate the digital platform that was introduced in 2024.

“We noticed that some of our entrants have not demonstrated the level of comfort that we’d want them to have, and this is due to just not having the information. Through the revisions made to the handbook, we’re now illustrating what the different steps in that process would be like,” noted Dr. Campbell.

Central to the plans for improvements to the competition is a slate of online sensitisation sessions set to begin on May 4 to provide entrants will early guidance ahead of the official opening of the submissions on June 1.

“We’re not waiting until June for our entrants to be informed about just what it is that we’re looking for. We are going to engage with the different groups starting May 4 with our youth artists aged six to 11 years,” he said

Artists aged 12 to 17 will be engaged on May 5, and adult artists from May 6 to May 15.

“They’re grouped based on the disciplines because we want the conversations to be focused on the different areas and the issues, concerns and nuances that we will associate with each of the creative disciplines,” Dr. Campbell noted.

Artists interested in participating are encouraged to register their interest by sending an email to visart@jcdc.gov.jm.

“You send us an e-mail, and we will guide you from there in terms of how to access the session or sessions that you may be interested in,” noted Dr. Campbell.

He also extended a special invitation to visual arts educators to join the sessions.

“I want to send a special invitation to our teachers at the primary level as well as our teachers at the secondary level. We want our teachers to be a part of these sessions [that] we have as a part of our strategy to increase the engagement with our students at all levels of the education system,” he said.

“We believe that they will benefit greatly from knowing about the competition and, in fact, participating in the competition,” Dr. Campbell added.