CFP: #43 Diversity. Curating

Contemporary music magazine „Glissando” invites you to contribute to the upcoming #43 issue on Diversity. Curating. Contemporary music and sound art. We invite you to submit abstracts/project proposals (up to 2,000 characters) and, after acceptance, full articles (30-35,000 characters), medium-length texts (12-15,000 characters) including interviews, or shorter texts (up to 6,000 characters) such as curatorial statements, diary entries, manifestos, commentaries and other written or visual formats (optionally) closely related to the topic of the issue.

Glissando #43 Diversity. Curating is developed in collaboration with the Sounds Now network, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Commission.

Issue theme: Diversity. Curating

Lead editor: Monika Żyła

Abstract submission deadline (extended): 28.02.2023

Ready text /material submission deadline (after acceptance): 30.04.2023

Submission address: magazyn.glissando@gmail.com

Release: Autumn 2023

Submission language: English*

Diversity. Curating. Contemporary music and sound art

The artistic, social, and critical potential of music and sound curating is still a much debated and contested area that constantly shifts in its attempts to adequately respond to the most pressing challenges we face nowadays. The theme behind the upcoming #43 issue of Glissando stems precisely from these questions: What curating can do and for whom? How curating can enhance more equal and meaningful participation in music and sound art? How to curate more inclusively and transparently? How curatorial practices can mobilize resources to afford more consistent and sustainable relationships between artists, collectives, institutions, and audiences?

In the upcoming issue of Glissando magazine, we are excited to create a space of reflection concerning some of the recent curatorial practices in music and sound, together with the challenges, and responsibilities they might bring about. At the same time, we want to continue imagining, articulating, and negotiating future objectives, values, directions, and multidimensional possibilities of curating. If curating music and sound art becomes more about openness, being together, creating, sharing, and maintaining common space, learning from one another, and growing together, how can we think of refining the way contemporary music and sound art worlds operate? How can we reimagine and afford more inclusive, equally shared, and welcoming spaces for everyone involved?

With this new issue of Glissando #43, our ambition is to create a platform to encourage sharing, negotiating, and promoting new curatorial voices, perspectives, ideas, and solutions. We want to create a significant collection of insightful accounts, thought experiments, curatorial proposals, statements, and other helpful resources we might find useful. The genres of proposed texts and materials could include the following: long-form think pieces, case studies, original research, interviews, short reports or letters, profiles, reportages, opinion pieces, visual essays, manifestos, commentaries, or how-to articles. We wish to dedicate this space to imagining new possible networks, allies, coalitions, and collaborations across music and sound disciplines and genres. We believe that this new issue of Glissando will become a valuable source that would bring us closer to better, more fair, equitable, open, effective, supportive, and accessible contemporary music and sound art. We think that articulating, nuancing, and reflecting on some of these critical questions together might bring us closer to the answers we so urgently need.

The range of possible topics is rather wide. It might include but is not limited to the following issues:

Emerging voices, perspectives, and strategies in curating
Diversity and inclusion in curating contemporary music and sound art
Transparency and sustainability in curating
Accessibility (access to space, knowledge(s), concepts, discourses, economic, geographical, and social), creating safe spaces
Barriers experienced in the fields of contemporary music and sound art
Addressing and overcoming epistemic injustice(s) (injustice related to knowledge) in curating
Various approaches to (dis)abilities and neurodiversity in curating
Curating for and with vulnerable groups (physically, mentally, socially, and economically underprivileged persons)
Non-orthodox, non-Eurocentric and decolonial approaches to curatorial practices in music and sound art
Cultural, ethical, and legal issues and challenges concerning sonic and musical repatriation, as well as approaches toward looted musical objects
Care, hospitality, and healing in curating
Curatorial responses to crisis (HIV epidemic, Covid-19, environmental, economic, humanitarian, military, and war)
Flat hierarchies, horizontality, distributed power relations, and alternative leadership models in music organizations, collectives, and institutions
Freelance curating vs. institutional curating
Self-curating (in ensembles, collectives, artist groups, communities, and commons)
Empowered/empowering audiences
Slow-curating and long-term relationships in curating
Musicians as curators, composers as curators, music critics as curators
Exploring the role of space (both physical, social, as well as metaphorical) in curating
Collective, grassroots, and community-oriented curating
New solutions related to the commissioning system in contemporary music (open calls, deadlines, rehearsals, payment schemes, logistics, and other practical aspects of event production and management)

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*We are offering professional editorial and proofreading support for each text and would like to encourage particularly non-native English speakers to submit their articles. We regret that due to limited resources, we are unable to provide translation from other languages. However, if language is a serious barrier for you, we would still consider translating your text from your preferred language. Please contact us directly and sufficiently in advance if this is your case.