This is an Open Call. Only 8 spots available. Open Call will end August 31st. The show will open October 16th 2026. Email your submission at PrismArtsPhiladelphia@gmail.com

Unseen Workers: Lives Beyond the Labor

Cities don’t run on ideas alone.
They run on hands, bodies, routines, early mornings, late nights, on labour often unseen.

Unseen Workers is a documentary-style exhibition that focuses on life beyond the labor, not on labor as a spectacle, but on the person and the interior world that exists after the shift ends, the identity that is not defined by how society ranks jobs.

This show is about people and visibility. Their lives, voices and humanity.

This Show Is Not

• A voyeuristic look at labor.

• About capturing labor as spectacle.

• About “hard work” as a moral performance.

• About a savior narrative

This exhibition is looking for artists, photographers, filmmakers, writers, and documentarians interested in telling honest, collaborative stories about people whose labor keeps the city running.

Work that explores: Life outside of work, identity beyond labor, the complexity, pride, humor, fatigue, tenderness, and contradictions of a full life.

The subject’s job may appear, but it should not be the whole story.

Collaboration and consent matter.
Subjects should be aware, willing participants in how they are represented.

Accepted Mediums

• Documentary photography

• Short documentary video

• Audio portraits or oral histories

• Written fragments (quotes, reflections, interviews)

• Mixed-media documentary approaches

We strongly encourage work that:

• Includes the subject’s own voice

• Allows the subject agency in how they are shown

• Resists stereotypes or romanticization

Who Should Apply

• Artists with an interest in documentary storytelling

• Artists working in collaboration with their subjects

• Artists who care about ethics, respect, and real human presence

• Artists connected to Philadelphia and its working communities (strongly encouraged)

Submission Requirements

• Artist statement (brief)

• Description of the project and relationship to the subject

• Images, video links, audio samples, or writing excerpts

• Confirmation that the subject has consented to participation

Philadelphia sees itself as a city of grit.
This show asks us to see the people who carry it.