---
title: A Smarter Location Filter for Explore
description: "The Explore location filter now works the way you'd expect — pick a place, see the opportunities near it. Plus virtual open calls get their own donut pin on the map."
date: 2026-04-13
author: Artsume Team
tags:
  - improvement
url: "https://www.artsume.com/changelog/2026-04-13-explore-location-filter"
type: changelog
---

# A Smarter Location Filter for Explore

# A Smarter Location Filter for Explore

Filtering opportunities by location used to be clunky. You'd pick a city, but the results would include anything tagged at the country level, the region level, or loosely "worldwide." Worse, picking a new city sometimes left the old filter lingering.

We rebuilt the location filter around a simpler idea: you pick one anchor — a city, a region, a country — and Artsume figures out what's actually near it.

## How it works now

Open the **Location** filter on [Explore](/explore) and type a place. Pick a Mapbox result and the filter instantly applies the right scope: city-level if you picked a city, country-level if you picked a country. No extra clicks to confirm.

Active filters show up as pills above the results. One tap clears them. The whole filter bar got a light redesign — more readable on desktop, and a proper bottom-sheet on mobile so you can set filters with your thumb without fighting the keyboard.

## Virtual opportunities, finally on the map

Before this, if an opportunity was virtual — a remote residency, an online exhibition, a fully-digital commission — it had nowhere to live on the map. Now virtual opportunities get their own **donut pin**: a round marker that floats above the rest of the map so you can see at a glance how many virtual calls are in the feed.

## Under the hood

- Opportunity location scopes (city, region, country, virtual) are now fully populated in the database, so filters behave predictably
- The Explore URL now carries your anchor location as a query param, so sharing a filtered view actually works
- Legacy filter URLs still work — we added a shim so anything you've bookmarked continues to load correctly

---

Try it out on [Explore](/explore). If something feels off, let us know at [support@artsume.com](mailto:support@artsume.com).