For decades, The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis has provided transformative learning experiences across the arts, sciences, and humanities for guests who walk through its doors. Everyone from toddlers to great-grandparents benefits from our immersive hands-on activities and exhibits. To add to those extraordinary experiences, the museum offers the Visiting Artist Program, made possible through extraordinary philanthropy provided by the Sarah and John Lechleiter family.
The museum is recruiting exceptional visual artists with ties to Indiana who have demonstrated experience in exhibiting, presenting, and teaching about their art to children and families. This application is for Visiting Artists who will facilitate workshops and exhibit loaned work from June 2026 to May 2027.
The goals of the Visiting Artist Program are:
- To recruit and feature extraordinary artists with Indiana ties to teach, interact with, and inspire children, families, and school groups through exhibitions and displays of their work and public presentations about it.
- To impart an understanding of the artist’s own career path, the focus of their work, and its storylines, inspiration, process, and/or the variety of mediums used.
- To demonstrate an understanding of the hard work, dedication, and study/practice that artists undertake.
- To help the museum reach children and families (including school groups and preschoolers) with professional art programming.
- To inspire children to pursue learning in and through the visual arts, including, but not limited to, art making, art history, art criticism, and aesthetics.
The museum anticipates multiple visits each year by one or two artists with ties to Indiana who will present and teach in specific locations within the museum as determined by their individual subjects and techniques, and agreed to by museum staff.
About The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis
The Children's Museum of Indianapolis is the world's largest children's museum. We ignite joy, wonder, and curiosity by creating powerful learning experiences for children and adults.
Statistics
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The museum comprises 17 major galleries spread over 482,950 square feet, including the Riley Children’s Health Sports Legends Experience®, a 7.5-acre indoor/outdoor experience dedicated to Indiana sports legends and family fitness.
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Annual museum attendance is more than 1.2 million guests.
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The museum houses over 130,000 artifacts and specimens of all shapes and sizes.
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Over 100,000 students visit each year on school field trips.
Eligibility
One or two artists may be selected annually to be the Visiting Artist by a museum Advisory Committee. Criteria to be used in consideration for artist selection will include:
- A record of strong artistic impact as noted through the artist’s body of work, current and past exhibitions and public engagements.
- A strong tie to Indiana (i.e., lives/lived in Indiana, attended school in Indiana, produced work in Indiana, etc.).
- A willingness and passion for engaging with and teaching children, their families and school groups.
- Subject matter that is family-friendly.
Application Details
The deadline to submit an application is 5 p.m. on Nov. 12, 2025The successful applicant(s) will receive an honorarium and reimbursement for reasonable expenses to be paid at set intervals throughout the contract period as agreed to by the museum and the artist(s).
A single PDF document should accompany the online application, which should include a CV, an artist statement, a description of teaching experience with children and the general public, ten images of the applicant’s artwork, and contact details for three references who can attest to the applicant’s work and teaching experience. Please apply below.
Contact Information
Alli Stitle
Associate Vice President, Experience Development
3000 N. Meridian St.
Indianapolis, IN 46208 United States
Tel: 317-334-4609
Email:
astitle@childrensmuseum.org
