[Commlist] CfP – Visual Studies in collaboration with Open eye Gallery, Liverpool UK – Visualising Climate Crisis

CfP – Visual Studies in collaboration with Open eye Gallery, Liverpool 
UK – Visualising Climate Crisis

Visual Studies Journal in collaboration Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool 
invite thematic and illustrated essays in traditional format (6-8,000 
words) that critically and conceptually examine how we come to see, 
understand, and respond to climate crisis. By foregrounding the visual 
as an optic to better understand and examine these pertinent and timely 
issues, we welcome proposals that examine:
•	How artists, activists, communities, and institutions deploy the use 
of photography and visual culture as a way of understanding the past, 
present and future impacts on communities, audiences, and people around 
the globe. •	Specific works of art and art practices that either 
historically or contemporaneously explore issues of climate crisis.
•	Critique the role and relationship between galleries, museums, 
institutions and issues of climate crisis, advocacy, and education.
•	Climate migrancy, the history of land and water management, food, and 
agricultural processes and/or the impact of food, clothing, and 
electrical consumption in relation to climate crisis.
•	Food, biodiversity, recycling, land and water use, climate and race 
justice, architecture, non-human animals, and alternative energy sources 
as issues related to the climate crisis, either negatively or positively.
This call also welcomes Visual Essays & New Media Reviews related to the 
themes of the call. As part of the process, successful submissions will 
feature in the Open Eye Galleries LOOK Lab, a precursor to the Galleries 
LOOK photography biennale. The final Visual Studies output, earmarked 
for July 2022, will be the official publication of the exhibition and 
wider activities associated with the biennale. The theme of LOOK 2022 
will be centred on climate catastrophe and environmental concerns by 
using photography and visual culture as a way of understanding the past, 
present and future impacts on communities, audiences, and people around 
the globe. This will be achieved by looking at climate migrancy, the 
history of land and water management, where our food, clothes and 
electronic items come from and how this will be impacted by restricted 
resources, and how photography has been used as a tool to tell us about 
ourselves and our heritages.
In the run up to the biennial, the gallery space and associated 
platforms will be turned into the LOOK Lab (Feb 2022) thinking space 
where artists, writers, scientists, lecturers, communities, and others 
can use the gallery as their workspace or studio. As part of this 
initiative, there will be a Visual Studies session/roundtable hosted by 
the journal editors. The focus of the session will be on the ‘power of 
images’ in climate crisis. This session will allow journal participants 
to join the space, physically or virtually to workshop their WIP idea, 
discuss and exhibit samples of their text and images and engage with a 
selection of exhibiting artists and active community groups to further 
unpack the theme of the biennale and the value images have/play in this 
context. In short, this will be an interim stop in the publication 
journey allowing authors to gain feedback, workshop ideas and engage in 
discussions and debate before the final publication. Authors will also 
be offered an opportunity to submit a short piece, set of images or 
provocation to the Look Biennale website.

Submission details:
1,000 word extended abstracts submitted to (climatecrisis /at/ openeye.org.uk) 
before Friday, July 02, 2021. The extended abstract can include the 
overview of the paper as per, plus if the author(s) so wish, address how 
they may engage with the Lab. A subsequent deadline will be 2 weeks 
prior to the Look Lab event in January 2022 – detail to be communicated 
to successful abstracts. Successful applications, chosen by a panel from 
Visual Studies and the gallery will be informed that their paper has 
been accepted on or before July 16, however, due to foreseeable demand, 
we will be unable to write to unsuccessful submission. Context:
Visual Studies is a is a leading international peer-reviewed journal 
published on behalf of the International Visual Sociology Association. 
The journal publishes visually-oriented articles across a range of 
disciplines, and represents a long-standing commitment to empirical 
visual research, studies of visual and material culture, the development 
of visual research methods and the exploration of visual means of 
communication about social and cultural worlds. Visual Studies is a key 
resource for all disciplines that engage with images, society, and 
culture, and aims to set the standard for the scholarly use of visual 
material. Open Eye Gallery produces exhibitions, long-term collaborative 
projects, publications, festivals, and university courses — locally and 
worldwide. We welcome over 85,000 visitors to our gallery every year, 
over 200,000 to projects in other venues, and many more to our online 
spaces. The gallery proactively takes risks to spark crucial 
conversations and enable creative expression.


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