Call for Issue 08: Winter 2022
Curated by Naomi White

Deadline for submissions: October 1, 2021

Guided by Instinct

As a species, we have evolved alongside animals. Our voices have developed in dialogue with animal howls, our vision evolving in concert with animal eyes. Our first paintings in caves were of animals, made with animal blood. Animals shape who we are. 

Connection to an animal is deeply felt in a way that is different from our human relationships. Animals appear silent, majestic and wise. We project onto them, seeing ourselves in them, and yet, we know little of their own experience.

In our complex relationship to animals, there are many contradictions. We mythologize and revere animals, yet sacrifice, tame, kill and consume them. Through the destruction and contamination of the environment, we have decimated the habitats of countless animal species. At this moment there is only 19% of wilderness left on Earth. 

Exploring our simultaneous desire to both love and destroy, care for and dominate animals, how can collage investigate our complex relationship to animals — the dualisms they embody, and the contradictions in ourselves that they illuminate?

– Naomi White, Artist and Educator

To submit artwork responses:

  • Describe your relationship with an animal, or animals. Envision ways to express this relationship without relying on images of animals.

  • Consider incorporating actual or photographed traces of our animal friends (feathers, molted snakeskin, your grandmother’s fur coat).

  • Consider incorporating actual or photographed elements of the natural or domestic habitats of animals.

  • Embrace the power of collaboration with animals.

  • Reflect on the symbolism of animals found in Issue 7 and throughout art history.

  • All eligible submissions must incorporate some portion or portions of Cut Me Up: Issue 7.


Issue 8 Curator Naomi White

Naomi White is an abolitionist feminist, artist and educator working on ideas at the intersection of political ecology and photography. Focusing on the transformative power of photography to effect desire and change, much of her work questions how we can shift our focus away from the current racist, capitalist model of domination to one of equity and collective voice. White is the winner of PDN’s Objects of Desire award and has exhibited throughout North America and Europe, including Scope, Art Basel Miami and Photo LA. Her work has been published in PDN, The Brooklyn Rail, FAYN and Uncertain States. White holds an MFA in Photography and Related Media from SVA in New York. She is currently the chair of photography at the New York Film Academy in Burbank, CA.

Instagram: @naomiwhitevisualartist
Web: naomiwhite.com


Cut Me Up Issue 8: Guided by Instinct was published on January 1, 2022.