The Inspiration
Asian communities carry a legacy of resilience and strength, even in uncertain times. This year, we urge you to draw power from the joy rooted in your identity, heritage, and traditions — a force that empowers, inspires, and connects us.
Joy is more than an emotion; it’s a declaration of strength and a blueprint for change. When we celebrate our culture, we shape the future and light the way for others to follow.
We invite you to explore how your heritage and traditions guide you, inspire your vision for a better world, and create space for a future that is unapologetically ours. Through your creativity, let’s celebrate joy as a catalyst for empowerment and transformation. Together, we’ll amplify cultural pride and ensure our stories shine brightly.
Through your chosen medium — Visual Arts, Performing Arts, or Literary Arts — show us how your cultural joy is not only an act of resistance but also a foundation for something bigger: the blueprint for a brighter tomorrow.
This is your time to celebrate who you are, inspire others, and shape the future with your story.
Share Your Joy. Shape the Future. Make Noise.
The Categories
Visual Arts
Description:
Create a piece that shows how joy becomes a transformative force. Use bold imagery or intricate designs to reflect the pride and strength of your heritage and how it inspires change. Whether traditional or contemporary, your art should be a celebration of cultural joy as a guide to a stronger future.
Submission:
Traditional or contemporary art forms, including paintings, sketches, digital art, sculptures, or mixed media. File Requirement: Please upload your submission in PDF format.
Additional Requirement:
Each submission must include a short written explanation (150–200 words) providing the background and context of the piece. Upload your written explanation as a separate PDF document. Share how your art reflects joy as a blueprint for change.
Example Topics:
Future in Bloom: A painting of a family tree, blending cultural motifs and contemporary elements to symbolize how traditions shape and inspire future generations.
Rising with Joy: A sculpture or mixed-media piece representing a cultural celebration as a metaphor for fortitude and transformation.
Performing Arts (Video Submission)
Description:
Use your performance to show how joy inspires action and change. Through spoken word, dance, music, or theater, share how your heritage empowers you to push boundaries and create a better future. Let your performance reflect how cultural pride shapes your identity and serves as a catalyst for transformation.
Submission:
Solo performance in dance, music, theater, spoken word, short film, or monologue. Maximum 3 minutes. Film Requirement: Please upload a video file or link to a YouTube video of your performance. Ensure the video is accessible to Make Noise Today
Additional Requirement:
Each submission must include a short written explanation (150–200 words) describing the inspiration for the performance and how it connects to the theme. Upload your written explanation as a separate PDF document from your video link.
Example Topics:
Rhythms of Change: A dance piece that blends traditional and contemporary styles to reflect the evolving strength and joy of your culture.
Speaking Joy into Action: A spoken word performance about reclaiming joy as a way to challenge stereotypes and inspire collective growth.
Literary Arts
Description:
Write a piece that reclaims joy as a tool for change. Through a poem, essay, or story, explore how your identity and traditions empower you to move through the world with strength and optimism. Let your words reflect how cultural pride builds a foundation for resilience and leads the way for transformation.
Submission:
Entries can span personal essays, short stories, poems, or memoirs. File Requirement: Please upload your submission in PDF format.
Word Limit:
Submissions must be no longer than 1,000 words. This range allows participants to tell a detailed story while maintaining the reader's attention.
Example Topics:
The Guiding Light: An essay about how cultural celebrations, like Lunar New Year or family rituals, empower you to envision a future of joy and strength.
Roots and Wings: A short story about a young person rediscovering a cultural tradition and using it to inspire action in their community.
Click HERE for additional examples and works that align with and reflect the contest theme.
The Rules & Regulations
Eligibility
Open to students who identify as Asian American or Pacific Islander.
Submissions must be submitted in English or translated into English. Parts of the submission can be in-language as long as it includes a back translation.
Students must be high school students in grades 9–12 (public, private, parochial, or homeschool) in the United States, the District of Columbia, or U.S. commonwealths and territories; or meet the citizenship requirements for students attending high school outside the United States.
A student attending high school outside the United States must be a citizen of the United States; or be a U.S. lawful resident (or have applied for permanent residence, the application for which has not been denied) and intend to become a U.S. citizen at the earliest opportunity allowed by law.
Submission Period
Submissions open on January 10, 2025.
Submissions close on March 21, 2025, at 11:59 PM PT.
Entry Requirements
You may submit entries in the following categories: Visual Arts, Performing Arts, and Literary Arts.
One entry per category per person. No group entries.
Students under 18 years of age must have parent/guardian permission and signature
Only one submission per category per person is allowed (no multiple submissions permitted in the same category). However, multiple submissions for various categories are permitted. A separate submission form must be completed for each submission.
Only new pieces of writing, videos, or artwork inspired by the theme may be submitted.
Each entry must be the original work of one student only. Content created by computer software and/or artificial intelligence will be disqualified.
An adult may not alter the creative integrity of a student’s work. Collaboration with other students is not allowed. Only one student may be recognized as the award recipient for each entry.
Each entry must contain a title.
Use of copyrighted material is prohibited. Plagiarized entries will be disqualified.
How To Submit
Visit our Instagram page @makenoisetoday
Follow Us*
Submit your entry below (Submission deadline March 21, 2025)
Contest winners will be contacted via Instagram DM by week of April 22, 2025.*You must follow@makenoisetoday on Instagram to enter the contest. (The submission form will ask you to confirm your Instagram handle.) Submissions by students who do not follow @makenoisetoday will not be included as part of the contest and exhibition.
Over $10,000 in Cash Prizes
Visual Arts Category
First Place: $2,000
Second Place: $1,000
Third Place: $500
Performing Arts Category
First Place: $2,000
Second Place: $1,000
Third Place: $500
Literary Arts Category
First Place: $2,000
Second Place: $1,000
Third Place: $500
Make Noise Today is awarding contest money to the winners as scholarship funds.
The prize is intended to help fund tuition, housing, or school supplies.
Judging Criteria
See “Judging Rubric” for each category criteria.
Adherence to submission guidelines.
Winner Selection
Entries will be reviewed, and first-round applicants may be sorted by the Make Noise Today committee.
All reviewing is done “blind” (no student information revealed).
Semi-finalists will be reviewed by a diverse panel inclusive of educators, writers, activists, and artists. Judging will follow a rubric assessing theme connectivity, creativity, technical skill, emotional impact, and background context.
Make Noise Today makes no restrictions on content or subject matter in writing or artwork.
Under no condition may parents or students contact the judges to dispute the status of any entry.
The Make Noise Today program, in its sole discretion, will select finalists for exhibition and provide awards/prizes.
The decisions of the judges are final and binding.
Notification
Winners will be notified via DM on Instagram and email by the week of April 22, 2025.
If a winner cannot be contacted within seven (14) days, Make Noise Today reserves the right to deem the prize forfeited and an alternate winner will be selected.
Scholarship Distribution
Scholarship money will be paid directly to each winner before the beginning of the 2025 academic year - September 1, 2025.
Rights to Submissions and Publicity
By entering the contest, participants grant the Make Noise Today organization and its affiliates a royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive license to display, distribute, reproduce, and create derivative works of the entries, in whole or in part, in any media now existing or subsequently developed, for any educational, promotional, publicity, exhibition, archival, scholarly, and all other standard Make Noise Today purposes. Make Noise Today will not be required to pay any additional consideration or seek any additional approval in connection with such uses.
Entry into the contest constitutes consent to use the winners' names, likenesses, and submissions for editorial, advertising, and publicity purposes without additional compensation, except where prohibited by law.
Make Noise Today reserves the right to use all contest submissions on their social media platforms and other publicity materials with proper credit given to the creators.
Privacy
Personal information collected from participants will be used only to administer the contest and award the prizes.
Exhibition of Work
Select student submissions will be chosen for display in both an in-person and virtual art exhibition.
By submitting an entry, participants waive any right to compensation for the display of their work in these exhibitions.
The exhibition is intended to celebrate the talent and effort of participants and to promote the cultural significance of Asian American heritage.