CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Liwanag 3
Following the re-issue of the seminal 1975 Filipino American arts anthology, Liwanag, SOMA Pilipinas is proud to announce our call for submissions for the newest entry into this series, Liwanag 3! As the original Liwanag, and the 1993 issue, Liwanag 2, amplified the voices of local, Bay Area Pilipinx American artists of those time periods, we’re bringing Liwanag back to showcase and reflect upon the evolution of the Pilipinx identity of today. Liwanag 3 seeks works that speak to the multiplicity of the Pilipinx American experience, in this moment in time. With a global pandemic stirring anti-Asian sentiments and disproportionately impacting frontline Pilipinx healthcare and hospitality workers , a worldwide uprising against historical and institutional anti-blackness , and punitive actions taken against our kababayan exercising civil liberties, we are reminded that art is essential to our survival and we must remain empowered to hold agency over our narratives. While we are physically distant from one another in the interest of public health and safety, Pillipinx American artists continue to create and share their practices as a means to deepen human connection through digital landscapes.
As a multi-disciplinary arts anthology we’re accepting submissions in the following categories: Literary: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, playwriting, comics/graphic novels Visual Art: painting, prints, illustrations, photography *we may consider video, audio, and multimedia submissions at a later date.
WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR:
As artists in the Bay Area we’re prioritizing your perspective and seeking work that will inform, shape, and expand how we see ourselves as Pilipinx American in this country, our relation to this land, and how we navigate its fraught history. We want to uplift and give voice to work that offers the fullest expression of the many intersections of our identity and moves against the received narratives of our hospitality and resilience, making space for our rage, our joy, our pleasure. We see the idea of Liwanag as not just a light, but a fire.
SOME GUIDING QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:
How and why has the Pilipinx identity evolved over time? How do we envision our communities?
How has the Bay Area shaped your identity, aesthetics, and political beliefs as a Pilipino/a/x?
How does rage, joy, and pleasure manifest in Pilipinx expression?
How do we exist as Pilipinx people in this country alongside other BIPOC communities?
What does Pilipinx solidarity alongside other marginalized groups look like?
How have artistic practices expanded or transformed in response to crises?
What is the future we envision for ourselves?
Please note: We are not interested in work that is anti-indigenous, anti-Black, anti-woman, homophobic, transphobic, queerphobic or engages in cultural appropriation and exploitation.
Submissions Guidelines: Literary: Poetry (3 poems/5 pages) Fiction, Non-fiction, Scripts, Comics/Graphic Novels (5 pages max, excerpts will be accepted) Visual Arts: 1-3 samples, 300 dpi min Currently living in, originally from, or have deep connections to the San Francisco Bay Area with priority given to those having roots or connection to the South of Market, SF.
DEADLINE: AUGUST 23 AT 11:59PM
PLEASE EMAIL LIWANAGINFO@GMAIL.COM IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Since launching our Call for Submissions back in February, our staff and volunteers have worked to rethink how this project can speak to the pandemic and then, in June, the worldwide uprisings in response to the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless others. We’ve also seen the passing of the Duterte administration’s Terror Bill and the culmination of the attack on the free press in the Philippines with the shutdown of ABS/CBN and the libel conviction of Maria Ressa.
Throughout all of this the cracks in so many of our established systems have been exposed and many of us are imagining a more just world and that has often meant reimagining the systems we’ve been adhered to, whether it’s the abolition of police and prison industrial complex or even the arts institutions and structures many of us have relied on and in many ways continue to reinforce.
With this project we want to not only reimagine but call back to the very ideals that brought this project about— the DIY, community based approach that has been a hallmark of Pilipinx arts. We want to bring that spirit into this project with the understanding that the concerns of now already exist in the artists of our community, today, who advocate loudly that Black Lives Matter, who engage in solidarity work, who give visibility and voice to the queer Pilipinx experience, who are defining who we are, today, constantly. So we hope that you will send us your work as Liwanag is a document of us.
(special shout out to Maganda Magazine out of UC Berkeley who has been doing this work for the last 20+ years!)
EDITOR’S NOTE ON THE USAGE OF PILIPINX:
As Liwanag seeks to reflect the voices of our present community we acknowledge and affirm that arts, culture, and history being made by us encompasses the inclusion of the work and labor of trans and gender non-conforming Pilipinxs for whom the usage of Filipino/a renders invisible.