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Let $M$ be a fixed compact oriented embedded submanifold of a manifold $\overline{M}$. Consider the volume $\mathcal{V} (\overline{g}) = \int_M \mathsf{vol}_{(M, g)}$ as a functional of the ambient metric $\overline{g}$ on $\overline{M}$, where $g = \overline{g}|_M$. We show that $\overline{g}$ is a critical point of $\mathcal{V}$ with respect to a special class of variations of $\overline{g}$, obtained by varying a calibration $μ$ on $\overline{M}$ in a particular way, if and only if $M$ is calibrated by $μ$. We do not assume that the calibration is closed. We prove this for almost complex, associative, coassociative, and Cayley calibrations, generalizing earlier work of Arezzo-Sun in the almost Kähler case. The Cayley case turns out to be particularly interesting, as it behaves quite differently from the others. We also apply these results to obtain a variational characterization of Smith maps.