The AAMI Excellence in Art Interpretation Competition Committee announces its second annual call for submissions. Entries will be accepted at this link through July 1, 2026. Winners will be announced at the 2026 Association for Art Museum Interpretation convening in Chicago, Illinois, and recognized by a distinguished panel of invited jurors from the museum interpretation community.
Eligibility
The competition is open to interpretation materials primarily in English* created for exhibitions and installations related to art, design, and material culture. Presentations may be permanent or temporary, gallery-based or online. Organizations and individuals from around the world—nonprofit, private, or commercial—are encouraged to submit.
Eligible work must have appeared in an exhibition or installation open to the public between January 1, 2024, and June 30, 2026.
Submissions previously considered for the AAMI Excellence in Art Interpretation 2025 awards will not be accepted.
Each organization may submit up to two entries. Jurors, organizing committee members, and board members are ineligible from entering as individuals. Jurors will recuse themselves from judging entries from their institutions or where they might be perceived to have a conflict of interest.
*Bilingual labels will be accepted as long as English is included.
Award Categories
- Best Installed Text Suite. Recognizes an exemplary suite of texts reflecting an interpretive plan. Required materials: Introductory panel, one section text, three object labels, and one Submitter’s Choice (an additional text asset that complements the suite). Submit materials as a manuscript (formatted with 1″ margins, 12-point double-spaced Times New Roman). If possible, include a PDF of the final designed version.
- Best Individual Label. Recognizes a particularly compelling single label written for an object on view. Required submission materials: one object label as a manuscript (formatted with 1″ margins, 12-point double-spaced Times New Roman). If possible, include a PDF of the final designed version.
- Best Narrative Audiovisual Content. Recognizes a standout example of narrative audio or video content that aids the interpretation of an artwork or exhibition. Required materials: Link to up to seven minutes of audio or video. Please also include a written transcript in document format.
- Best Visitor Resource. Recognizes a printed tool that supports independent visitor engagement, scaffolded through tasks, prompts, or structured exploration. Required submission materials: PDF of the visitor resource.
- Best Interactive. Recognizes physical or digital tools designed to support hands-on, direct visitor engagement with exhibition themes. Required submission materials: For physical interactives – link to a folder of up to 5 photographs documenting the installation or link to one-minute video documenting the installation. For digital interactives – link to the online version, or to a one-minute screen recording documenting the functionality.
Special Recognition Awards
In addition to the category prizes above, special awards recognition may be awarded to entries that demonstrate exceptional focus in one of the following areas. Entrants do not apply separately for these awards; jurors will identify eligible entries from the general submission pool.
- Best Use of Non-Institutional Voice in Interpretation. This award recognizes interpretation that meaningfully incorporates expertise beyond the institution, whether through community co-writing, oral histories, first-person testimony, or other approaches that share interpretive authority. We’re looking for work that genuinely expands who gets to make meaning in the gallery. Examples might include: labels co-written with community advisors, audio guides narrated by artists or neighborhood residents, or exhibition texts developed through participatory research processes.
- Best Interpretation Content for Children. This award recognizes content that takes children seriously as thinkers—work that is age-appropriate without being reductive, and that creates real aesthetic or intellectual encounters with art. We’re especially interested in content that identifies what children uniquely bring to a work. Examples might include: family gallery guides, labels written at multiple reading levels, activity cards, or children’s audio content.
- Best Accessibility-Focused Interpretation. This award recognizes work that understands accessibility as an interpretive opportunity—content that makes meaning available to visitors with a range of linguistic, sensory, cognitive, or physical needs, and in doing so often produces richer experiences for all visitors. We’re especially interested in work that was designed with the communities it serves. Examples might include: multilingual interpretation, audio description, large-print or plain-language labels, tactile elements integrated into interpretive programming, or ASL-interpreted content.
- Best Contextualization of a Challenging History. This award recognizes interpretation that grapples honestly with difficult, contested, or painful subject matter. We’re looking for work that holds complexity, trusts visitors to sit with discomfort, and takes an ethical as well as interpretive stance. Examples might include: labels that acknowledge provenance disputes or gaps in institutional knowledge, exhibition texts that center affected communities’ perspectives on their own histories, or interpretive materials that name institutional complicity rather than obscuring it.
How to Submit
All entries are submitted through the competition portal.
Each entry should be submitted as a separate form. Submissions must include:
- A completed entry form identifying the submitter’s name and organization, the exhibition name, and the content category
- All required materials for the selected category (see above), provided as links or file uploads within the form
Questions
Contact artmuseuminterpretation@gmail.com
View the winners of the 2025 competition here.