The Raia Project · New York City · Est. 2026
Six months.
Live, create.
New York.
A $50,000 sponsorship that pays for an emerging artist to live and work in New York City for six months and puts the work in front of buyers. A launch for emerging artists.
About the project
Great work is made by artists who can afford to make it.
New York is where contemporary art is made, shown, and sold — and it is nearly impossible for an emerging artist to live here and still have the time, space, and money to work. The Raia Project exists to close that gap.
Every six months we select artists from an open call and award each a $50,000 prize that covers living and studio expenses in the city, so they can do nothing but make work. At the end of the term, that work is shown at a pop-up exhibition we host, opened with a party for collectors, tastemakers, and the people who shape what hangs on New York’s walls.
01
The Prize
$50,000 to cover six months of living and working expenses in New York City, awarded to emerging artists through an open call and a rigorous selection.
02
The Exhibition
A pop-up gallery show of the work made during the term, opened with a private party that puts the artist in a room with the people who buy art.
03
The Collection
A growing collection of work by every Raia artist, and a network of collectors that keeps buying long after the party ends.
The point of view
We look for artists with a point of view,
and work that could only be theirs.
Not decoration. Not provocation for its own sake. Meaningful work — beautiful, moving, and unmistakably the artist’s own — by artists with the voice to shape the art landscape we live in now, not follow it. Chosen by an eye, not a committee.
Past winners
The first Raia artists will be announced soon.
The inaugural cycle opens with our first open call. Every artist we back, their term, and the exhibition that followed will live here — a record of the work the project made possible.
Submissions · Cycle 01 closes December 30, 2026
Apply.
Open to emerging artists living in New York City. Applications for the first cycle close December 30, 2026, and the Raia artists are announced February 26, 2027. Send us the work, tell us what you would make with six months of freedom, and we will take it from there.
