BLACKOUT: Art + Writing Call

We younger [Black] artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame... We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves. - Langston Hughes, The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain

Time to black out. It’s a Blackout. 

If we do not make space for ourselves, who will?

Black artists and writers submit to our open call for art + writing from and centered upon the Black experience.

This anthology is a collaboration between Genre: Urban Arts and 5 Points Art Gallery + Studios, both Black women owned organizations coming together in friendship, sisterhood, and business to curate and drop an arts anthology entitled BLACKOUT.

This anthology is our temple for Black People of the African Diaspora. Create about our experiences, our happiness, our joy, our love, our growth, our hurt. We will show up here and be represented in our fullness.

BLACKOUT will be released on July 2, 2021 to coincide with the This Is America Exhibition at 5 Points Art Gallery + Studios in Milwaukee, WI. This Is America is an annual exhibition featuring artists of color, demonstrating through visual art, their perspectives on what is America. The show's concept is not necessarily a projection of a pro or con stance on America, but more so a visual narration of "this is what America is/looks/feels/tastes/etc. like to me". The concept is open-ended to capture the broad, often overlooked, lived experiences, associations and identity to the country and its culture(s). 

Black Artists and Black creatives, this is a publication where we do what deities must— create. 

We stand here on the work and love of our ancestors who push us forward and also push us inward to become more fully ourselves. 

BLACKOUT Submission Requirements:

No Simultaneous Submissions.

Visual and written works must be original and owned by the creator. Written works must be unpublished.

Visual Submissions:

3-6 hi-res images, minimum 300 dpi, .jpg, .png, .pdf

Written Submissions:

2-3 written works, .doc, .docx, times new Roman, 12pt font

Poems, 30 lines or less

Prose, 1-3 pages

Submit To:

https://genreurbanarts.submittable.com/submit/191203/blackout

Deadline:

May 9, 2021