MOJA Arts Festival issues open call for artist to design Official Festival Poster 

City and MOJA Arts nonprofit also release growing festival events schedule 

CHARLESTON, S.C. – July 22, 2026 – MOJA Arts and the Office of Cultural Affairs are issuing an open call for an artist to design the official poster for the 2026 MOJA Arts Festival, which returns September 24-October 1 at locations across Charleston.

This is the first year the now eight-day festival is being co-planned by the OCA and MOJA Arts, a newly formed 501(c)(3) nonprofit created to plan and grow the event independently. Applications to make events or performances an official part of the MOJA Festival are available HERE. The deadline is August 5.

The 2026 festival features local and national performers in a packed schedule that includes reggae and gospel music, poetry, drama, storytelling, a Gullah Geechee cook-off and a blockbuster finale that celebrates the 50th anniversary of several iconic 1976 albums, including Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life.”

OFFICIAL POSTER
Artists living in anywhere in South Carolina are invited to compete to have their work featured on the festival poster and on merchandise and digital marketing materials.  The City is awarding the highest poster commission in MOJA history: $5,000. Artists are asked to adhere to the following guidelines:

• The art must have been completed within the last two years and may not have been previously exhibited in the Charleston region.
• Artists must limit each submission to one (1) digital image of an original artwork that should not exceed 36″ x 36″ for consideration for the poster.
• Artists should include, along with their poster submission, no more than four (4) other digital images as samples of their work. The samples must be two-dimensional but can be in any medium.
• Submissions created wholly or in part using artificial intelligence image-generation tools are not eligible.

Complete rules and application are available at https://citygalleryatwaterfrontpark.com, which also has details for artists to submit for the MOJA Arts Festival Juried Exhibition. The poster submission deadline is August 20. The  juried submission is August 11.