We at Elbow Room have decided to celebrate the diversity and talent we have encountered over three delightful and successful years. We are inviting artists and writers from across the arts to submit work to our inaugural competition, launching on June 1st and culminating in a special event and publication. 

 

Deadline: Sunday the 16th of August at midnight GMT.

Winners will be notified by Wednesday the 30th of September via email and will be publicised on the website soon after.

The event will be held towards the end of October and will be publicised after the winners are announced.

 

The Judging Panel includes Rosie Sherwood, Zelda Chappel and Lauren Fried.

Rosie Sherwood is an artist, scholar and founder of independent publishing company As Yet Untitled. Her interdisciplinary practise focuses on storytelling, an exploration of the book and the curation and publication of on going cross-disciplinary journal Elbow Room. Sherwood graduated from Camberwell College of Art with an MA in Book Arts in 2013. She has taught at multiple institutions including the University of East Anglia, University of the Arts London and Bournemouth University. Sherwood recently published an article on the comic book and book arts in The Arts Library Journal and held her first solo exhibition.

Zelda Chappel’s poetry has been widely published in both print and online journals with poems appearing in Obsessed with Pipework, Whisker, Eunoia Review, Lunar Poetry, Popshop, Bare Fiction, Prole, Hark Magazine, The Interpreter’s House and Ink, Sweat & Tears amongst many others. In September 2014, her poem Another Twenty, Another Stone won the Battered Moons Poetry Competition, judged by David Morely. Her poetry was also nominated for this year’s Forward Prize. Chappel is co-curator for Elbow Room. Her debut collection, Girl in the Dog-toothed Coat, will be published by Bare Fiction in July 2015.

Lauren Fried is a historian of the designed body, currently undertaking a PhD based between the Royal College of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum. She holds an MA in the History of Design, and an MA (Hons) in the History of Art and the History of Architecture. She has worked as a contemporary fine art curator in various locations across London and Scotland, as an exhibitions researcher at the V&A, and as a gallery manager. Her academic research now focuses on gender and sexuality in performance, archives and museology. She curates and writes around these subjects, and currently teaches at the London College of Fashion, as well as writing and curating work on contemporary art, the body and dress.

 

Categories

Poetry

Prose

Visual Arts

 

Prizes

For each category:

First prize in each category: £200

Second and third prizes in each category: £50 each

All winners will be published in a special competition anthology edition of Elbow Room.

All winners will be featured in a London based exhibition and live event.

 

Guidelines

Poetry:

The submission fee is £10 for up to three poems.

Poems must all be written in English.

Poems must be no longer than 40 lines.

Any title is not included in the line count.

Poems must all be in a single document with each poem starting on a new page.

Poets must not include their name on any part of the document as all entries will be judged anonymously.

Poems must be written in a clearly readable font and size (e.g. Times New Roman size 11 or 12).

Work must not have been previously published and cannot be under consideration for any other prize or publication.

 

Prose:

The submission fee is £10 for up to three pieces of fiction.

All prose must be written in English.

All prose entry must be no more than 3000 words per story (there is no minimum word limit).

All entries must be in a single document with each story starting on a new page and clearly titled.

Any title is not included in the word count.

Writers must not include their name on any part of the document as all entries will be judged anonymously.

All work must be written in a clearly readable font and size e.g. in Times New Roman size 11 or 12.

All work must be doubled spaced.

Each piece of fiction must have a clearly indicated word count.

Work must not have been previously published and cannot be under consideration for any other prize or publication.

 

Visual Arts:

The submission fee is £10 for up to three pieces of work.

The work submitted does not have to come from the same series (or be connected to each other in any way).

You may enter up to five sample images or one short film of up to 5 minutes per piece of work (for example- if the work is a sculpture you can submit more than one image of the piece from different perspectives)

All images must be 300 dpi

Maximum total file size per piece of work is 10MB. If your total entree exceed this you may submit the images via WeTransfer.

Please include a title and brief technical and conceptual description, no more than 250 words, for each piece of work. Please include these in the same document clearly separated if making more than one entry.

Please name your files to clearly indicate which piece of work they relate to.

Artists’ names must not appear anywhere on the work or file name, as all entries will be judged anonymously.

Artists must specify an estimated size of each piece of work in metric units, eg. cm/mm/metres.

Work must not have been previously published and cannot be under consideration for any other prize or publication. However you can have previously exhibited it.

 

To Enter

All entries must be done via email elbowroomsubmissions@gmail.com

Please attach your file/s to the email.

For poets and writers please send your work as a .docx, .doc or PDF

For visual artists please send your work as a .jpeg or .tiff

If submitting a video please include a link in the body of your email to a private online video.

 

In the email subject line please state ‘Elbow Room Competition Submission’ plus the category you are entering.

Please address your emails to Rosie, Zelda and Lauren.

Please include the following details in the body of your email:

Name

Artist’s Name (if different)

Category you are entering

Number of pieces

Titles of pieces

Payment Transaction ID (this is your order number)

Email address

Visual Aritsts, if submitting files via WeTransfer please include in the following information in the message box (you do not need to send us a second email):

Elbow Room Competition

Name

Artists Name (if different)

Category you are entering

Number of pieces

Titles of pieces

Payment Transaction ID (this is your order number)

Email address

Remember to submit all files including project descriptions.

Anyone who does not follow these guidelines will not be considered and all entrance fees are non-refundable. Please refer to our FAQs if anything is unclear or contact us for further information.

 

Payment

Payment must be made through the online Elbow Room shop.

 

FAQ (for all categories)

You do not have to be a London (or even UK) based artist/writer to enter. If your work is selected and you are unable to attend or transport your work to the event, solutions will be found to ensure you are featured.

All entries will be judged anonymously so it is important that your name does not appear anywhere on the work itself.

Visual Arts include (but are not limited to) Painting, Printmaking, Photography, Drawing, Illustration, Sculpture, Video Arts, Animation, Books Arts and mixed media pieces. If you are unsure if your work qualifies please do not hesitate to contact us.

For the visual arts category we are classifying a piece of work as a single image, video, sculpture or object. This can include a book (or similar) that includes multiple images within it so long at they are contained/bound together. If you are unsure if your work qualifies do not hesitate to contact us for further details.

The visual arts submissions will be being judged as the based on the quality of the original piece of work rather than how it will appear in publication format. If multiple images of the same piece of work are needed to best display it for the judges (eg an installation or sculptor) that is completely acceptable.

We will happily accept work by artists and writers working collaboratively, please simply include all your names and biographical details in the body of your email. Please do not hesitate to contact us for further details if required.

The piece submitted can be from a larger body of work or series. If this is the case please indicate in the description of the work.

Any video art or animation entrees must be no longer than 20 minutes.

If your work is untitled that is fine but please clearly state this.

Any further questions can be sent to elbowroomsubmissions@gmail.com with the subject line Elbow Room Competition Question.

 

 

Elbow Room reserves the right to change the judging panel or not to award prizes.

We reserve the right to use your work to promote the event but all copyright remains with the writers/artists.

By entering the competition you are automatically agreeing to these terms.