What is Zealous Amplify?
Amplify is an award to celebrate the most impactful works touching by creators of all backgrounds across the world.
In a world brimming with both uncertainty and possibility, creativity offers a powerful lens to shape our vision of the future. The State of Tomorrow invites creatives to imagine what lies ahead—not just as a response to the challenges we face today, but as an exploration of the positive changes we can create together.
As you look forward, we encourage you to start with these questions as inspiration:
- What would you choose to preserve, and what would you seek to change for the generations to come?
- What does a hopeful future look like to you?
- What does ‘home’ look like in the future?
- What role will nature play in the cities of tomorrow?
- What technology could exist in the future to help people live happier lives?
- If future societies focused on kindness, how would people interact with each other?
- Imagine a world where a single positive change transforms society. What would that change be, and how would it impact daily life?
We hope that by rewarding you and sharing your incredible work, we can support you whilst creating meaningful dialogue around the future.
Why submit?
- The 20 shortlisted artists will have their work seen by leading industry judges, who will then select the top 3 finalists, including the overall winner.
- It’s free to submit and longlisted applicants will also have a chance to be featured on our website
- We will also be using this competition to raise money for our chosen charity, Arts Emergency.
Arts Emergency is an award-winning mentoring charity and support network. Arts Emergency is a social justice charity founded by comedian Josie Long and activist Neil Griffiths. Since 2013, it has supported under-represented young people without connections follow their passions and navigate their way into the creative and cultural sector by providing a combined long-term programme of mentorship, networking and real-world opportunities. All donations made contribute to their impactful work and go towards making the future a fairer place for all.
You can find more about their work on their website, Bluesky, Instagram, and Linkedin.
Who is judging my work?
As well as being seen by our lovely Zealous team, shortlisted artists will have their work seen industry judges, including CEO of Arts Emergency Neil Griffiths, British journalist, writer and broadcaster Rosie Millard, and Co-founder of REMIX Summits Simon Cronshaw.
How to Apply
Each submission you make needs to represent one project or work.
This could be a short film, performance, artwork, script, design, game, etc. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list and is just here to provide ideas of what your submissions could look like.
To give us a good representation of the work, we allow each submission to contain 5 items (a mix of images, videos, music, text…). The first item should be the piece you want to be considered, all other items are optional and should be made up of supporting elements (e.g. stills, close-ups, synopsis, etc.).
Uploaded film footage should be less than 5 minutes long (if this is for a longer project, a trailer will do).
All written works should be less than 1,000 words.
Unfortunately, all submissions that overrun will be disqualified.
You can submit up to 3 times, but please submit each work separately.
Prizes
- First Place – £1000 cash prize, Homepage feature, Exclusive interview on our blog + newsletter, Promotion across our social media channels (combined audience of 72,000+)
- Second Place – £250 cash prize
- Third Place – £150 cash prize
- Public Vote – £100 Amazon voucher
The shortlisted artists will also be invited to a virtual talk on networking by Ceri Hand, as well as a discount her for self-study course, Unlock Your Artworld Network.
Where do I go to apply?
You can apply using the submit button below. You have until 17th March ’25 at 12pm GMT to submit.
Need Some Inpiration?
We spoke to several artists about a hopeful future and positive changes we can make. With so many of them hitting similar chords, they were woven together to create a dialogue in the hopes to inspire other creatives wanting to explore the theme.
First up, Anastassia Zamareva and Michele Payne. Anastassia is a London-based ceramic artist and Michele is an abstract artist.
Next up we have Iona from Cut Out Club and Urmila. Cut Out Club hosts UK Zine Making Workshops and Urmila is a teacher, artists, and writer based in Hong Kong.
Finally, we have Patricia Lee and Livy Bluu. Patricia is a Jamaican artist inspired by the natural world and Livy is a creative with a focus on self discovery.