issue 001 - OPEN CALL

The first issue began with arrival. This one turns to value.

It looks at what supports a life once it’s already begun to take shape—what stays close after the introductions are over, and what continues quietly underneath visibility. A table marked by years of use, clothing shaped through repetition, rooms that slowly adjust themselves around a body, objects that gather meaning simply by remaining in reach. It also asks what allows someone to remain where they are, what makes continuation possible, what makes something feel like enough. Here, stability isn’t treated as permanence but as a kind of relationship, and value as something you feel before you measure it—something that becomes visible through care, maintenance, exchange, and choice.

We’re inviting submissions from photographers, visual artists, writers, poets, and makers whose work pays attention to the conditions that make continuity possible. That might mean the environments that hold up everyday life, or income as it’s actually lived rather than abstractly described. It might show up in objects, tools, clothing, or belongings that take part in survival, or in the ways labor shapes a sense of self. We’re interested in personal skill as a material condition, and in the quiet, often overlooked structures involved in making a living. We’re drawn to how people build stability with what’s available to them, how usefulness can become a form of intimacy, and how comfort is something constructed, negotiated, or protected over time. We welcome work that sits with the tension between scarcity and sufficiency, that notices what people keep close and why, what remains after something is made, or which objects feel inseparable from the process that produced them. This could include what’s held onto without monetary value, what’s intentionally kept out of circulation, what has followed someone across time or place, what marks a shift in a practice, or what carries more meaning than function alone.

At the same time, this issue isn’t looking for generalized commentary on wealth that stays distant from lived conditions, or work centered on spectacle rather than support. We’re less interested in objects presented without context, or explanations of value that don’t actually let us encounter it.

Media Requirements:

Submissions can be documentary, staged, observational, conceptual, or somewhere in between. Series are welcome, and so are fragments. Process matters. The work doesn’t need to be newly produced. We’re open to photography, visual essays, written essays, poetry, and images of visual art projects accompanied by a project description (including project title, artist name, date of creation, and material).

Photo series: Submit 8–15 images

Written pieces: Submit up to ~2,000 words for essays and up to ~500 words for poetry (images are optional but encouraged), along with a short project description and brief bio. Links may be included where the work extends beyond the submission.

Quality Requirements:

  • images should be JPG or TIFF

  • at least 3000px on the long edge, ideally 300 DPI at size

  • in sRGB or AdobeRGB, and sequenced/numbered as intended

  • scanned and analog work is welcome if reproduced clearly, with material traces intact where relevant

  • text and mixed-media submissions should be provided as print-legible PDFs

  • time-based work may be submitted as a single excerpt (up to 1 minute, MP4, 1080p), with links for longer pieces.

Technical perfection is not the goal, but clarity is—work should hold its presence across print and screen without losing detail.

Submissions close on May 15, 2026, and selected contributors will appear in Issue 001.

issue 000 asked how it feels to arrive. This one asks what allows that arrival to continue—and what it takes to stay.