I Can Hold Your Heavy
Call for Artists
What are you carrying—and how would you show it?
We move through life carrying things—responsibilities, expectations, pressure, roles—often without realizing how heavy they’ve become. Stress, burnout, and overwhelm have been normalized to the point that they begin to feel like baseline, creating the illusion that this is what life is supposed to feel like—when in reality, it has become a mental health crisis.
This installation is built around a simple but powerful metaphor:
what we carry in our bags, and what we carry within ourselves.
Each participating artist will be given a purse or bag as a starting point. From that object, you will create a piece that reveals what that bag is really carrying—literally, symbolically, or emotionally. The bag becomes both container and catalyst: a way to explore what is seen, unseen, spoken, and unspoken.
The installation will be featured during the First Friday Gallery Crawl at Dilworth Artisan Station, where hundreds of visitors move through the space. This will be an immersive, interactive experience. Viewers will not only engage with the work, but will be invited to reflect on what they themselves are carrying—privately writing something they are ready to release and placing it into a shared purse within the installation. These collected reflections will become part of a closing ritual, transforming private weight into a shared act of letting go.
We are partnering with HopeWay, a leading mental health organization, to support this work and provide a meaningful connection to resources for those who may need it.
This is a non-compensated opportunity, created for artists who feel personally connected to this message and want to be part of a larger cultural conversation. The installation will be supported by press, community visibility, and strong public engagement during one of Charlotte’s most attended gallery events.
If you’ve ever felt the weight of what this project explores—or want to give it form—this is an opportunity to contribute to something meaningful, visible, and shared.
Interested in Contributing?
To be considered, please email a brief introduction along with 3–5 images of your work.
For more details and explore whether it’s the right fit please contact Becky Keenan at beckykeenanart@gmail.com