LAST WEEK FOR OPEN CALL! Reception TODAY 3/15 1-3 for RESIST/THE URGE

LAST WEEK

Share your work with us!

When you submit to this open call your work will be considered for:

A group exhibition juried by Larry Ossei-Mensah
Solo and group shows
Digital exhibitions and social media features

Open to artists across disciplines. Cost to apply is $35, however no one is turned away for lack of funds, please email info@elycenter.org for fee waiver information before you apply.

DEADLINE MARCH 22.

Apply at elycenter.org/open-call-2026

“What excites me most about this open call is the spirit of possibility it creates. Artists working across disciplines are invited to share their vision, and that openness is where new ideas, voices, and creative futures begin to emerge.”

The Ely Center has long been a space where experimentation and community intersect. I’m eager to see submissions from artists who are pushing boundaries, taking risks, and using their work to reflect the complexity of the world around us.”

-Larry Ossei-Mensah

TODAY

Opening reception for RESIST/THE URGE
Sunday, March 15, 1-3pm

Founded in New Haven in March 2024, the Planned Parenthood Support Squad (PPSS) began as a grassroots effort to demonstrate community support for bodily autonomy and access to healthcare, while raising funds to help sustain healthcare providers such as Planned Parenthood of Southern New England. The group gathers weekly outside clinics to counter anti-abortion demonstrators who seek to shame patients and spread misinformation. Their approach is one of joyful resistance: danging, music, handmade signs and collective presence. This March marks their 2 year anniversary.

RESIST/THE URGE presents a visual timeline of the group’s growth and activism. The exhibition includes protest signs, artwork created for fundraisers, digital media used to spread awareness, and photographs documenting the Support Squad in action. Together, these materials reflect the creativity and energy that has fueled the group’s expanding community.

Protest signs and printed messages have long served as powerful tools for expressing beliefs, values, and collective missions. They offer a voice for those who may not otherwise feel able to speak publicly, allowing individuals to share their views through humor, urgency, poetry, imagery, or bold declarations.

Through these forms of expression, RESIST/THE URGE highlights the ways everyday people can come together to build something larger than themselves. The exhibition underscores the importance of community solidarity while acknowledging that the struggle for bodily autonomy continues and that collective action remains vital.

This exhibition marks the first presentation in the Ely Center’s Project Space Gallery, a new initiative inviting artists and curators to submit exhibition proposals for consideration by the Ely Center’s Curatorial Advisory Committee. The space is intended to support experimentation, collaboration, and timely artistic responses to contemporary issues.

Carrissa Judd
Deborah Costanzo
Jaqueline Pagano
Jennifer Franson Hopper
LBDoodles
Olivia Piper

ON VIEW

Ensconced installation, photo by Peter Brown

Exhibitions on view February 8- April 12, 2026
Intervals
small tears, cuts and scribbles
Ensconced
What Remains Tied, Bound in Belonging

Three solo shows by artists Diana Abouchacra, Lauren Flaaen and Dario Mohr, the Fall ’25 Keyhole Workspace cohort, use installation and transformed objects to examine how bodies, memories, and identities are mediated through structures that both protect and constrain.

Abouchacra’s What Remains Tied, Bound in Belonging offers an immersive installation on memory and care, combining sculptural “memory ties,” audio, and video to consider how belonging is formed over time.

Flaaen’s small tears, cuts and scribbles transforms domestic furniture into a bodily form, exploring vulnerability, protection, and transformation with her reupholstered couch installation.

In Ensconced, Mohr examines light, visibility, and power with illuminated glass cubes that frame Black male bodies in moments of concealment and revelation.

The use and transformation of fixtures, furniture, and unassuming kitchen materials creates an underlying theme of comfort, exposure, intimacy and power in the three artists’ exhibitions.

Intervals is a group exhibition presented by the volunteer artists and curators who comprise the Ely Center’s Curatorial and Program Advisory Committee. Reflecting on pauses, shifts, and in-between states, Intervals addresses moments of change—between places, roles, and aesthetics—while reinforcing long-term vision of inclusivity, diversity, and spaces built through collaboration.

Alexzandria Robin/ Sydney Bell, David Borawski/ Peter Brown, Debbie Hesse/ Marion Belanger, Ellen Hawley | Michael G. Young , Emily Weiskopf/ Douglas Degges, Fritz Horstman/ Sabrina Marques, Howard el-Yasin/ Susan McCaslin, Jeanne Ciravolo/Janet Warner, Judith Kruger/ Catherine Christiano, Kit Young/Paloma Kop & Andrei Jay, Maria Markham/ Jayden Ashley, Suzan Shutan/ Molly Gambardella

HOURS

Gallery Hours: We, Th, Su 12-5pm or by appointment- to book an off hours visit please email aburg@elycenter.org

SUPPORT ECOCA

M I S S I O N

The Ely Center of Contemporary Art’s mission is to present contemporary art exhibitions and events—challenging, conceptual, and provocative—that are inclusive, diverse and promote dialogue around global and community issues. Our work reaffirms Grace Ely’s testamentary wishes for an art center where artists, arts organizations, and the public assemble, exchange, learn, and engage through exhibitions, performances, and emerging contemporary practice

ECOCA receives support from the City of New Haven, Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, Connecticut Office of the Arts, Connecticut Humanities, New Alliance Foundation, Wells Fargo and Friends of the John Slade Ely House of Contemporary Art.

Share your work with us!

DEADLINE MARCH 22.

Apply at elycenter.org/open-call-2026

Opening reception for RESIST/THE URGESunday, March 15, 1-3pm

Opening reception for RESIST/THE URGE
Sunday, March 15, 1-3pm