Chinese New Year is not just a holiday. It is texture, distance, color, sound, and the kind of memory that returns before you do.

ELSEHERE is now accepting submissions for Stories of Chinese Lunar New Year, a special edition that gathers works and writing that reimagine the season through objects, places, and feeling. We are looking for pieces that are intimate, visual, and emotionally precise, as well as works that expand the idea of home, identity, and cultural remembrance across geographies.

 

Initiated by ELSEHERE

ELSEHERE is an international arts nexus operating across development, production, commissioning, publishing, and cross-border partnerships. We collaborate with artists, thinkers, and institutions across regions and languages, building pathways for works to be created, contextualized, circulated, and archived.

 

Submission Themes

1) Touchable Memories

Start with an object and let it lead you back: fireworks, couplets, New Year prints, dumplings, wrappers, incense, red envelopes, or any everyday detail that carries a whole world inside it.

2) Where the Home Is

“Returning home” is not always possible, and home is not always a birthplace. Home is not always a location, sometimes it is a time, a person, a language, a smell. We welcome works that explore the tension between return and distance, belonging and redefinition, hometown and chosen home.

3) Spectrum of Red

Red is never only one red. We invite works that center red as subject, atmosphere, or structure, exploring its emotional range and cultural resonance.

Special Theme: Thundering Horses, Onrushing Tide

The Year of the Horse returns. We invite bold, playful, or unexpected interpretations that merge the horse motif with New Year elements, building new memories for the season.

 

Formats Accepted

Multimedia

Photography (up to 5 images)

Static digital works (illustration, poster, etc., up to 5 images)

Video (1–3 min, Chinese + English subtitles required)

Audio (1–3 min)
Each submission must include a description of up to 200 words.

Text

Short poems

Prose
Text submissions: up to 1000 words.

This open call is open worldwide. Individuals or collectives are welcome. Emerging and established creators encouraged.

 

What Selected Artists Receive

Selected works will receive:

Official feature and archival listing on ELSEHERE (a stable link for your portfolio and long-term visibility)
 

Promotion via ELSEHERE’s official channels, with extended circulation through our international partner network
 

Curatorial framing and editorial support to strengthen clarity, readability, and cross-cultural accessibility
 

Invitation to online programs such as artist talks or thematic conversations (subject to schedule)
 

Priority consideration for future opportunities with ELSEHERE, including upcoming open calls, publishing, and collaborations
 

 

Timeline

Open: Sat, Feb 7, 2026

Deadline: Tue, Mar 3, 2026, 23:59
Lantern Festival (15th day of Lunar New Year)
 

 

How to submit

Submit via ELSEHERE website submission page: https://www.elsehereglobal.com/application 

To support platform operations, review, editorial production, and archiving, a submission fee applies: $20

Application fee covers curatorial review and editorial processing. It sustains STRATUM and ELSEHERE’s publishing and archiving infrastructure. Fee is non-refundable.
 

 

Copyright

Copyright remains with the artist. By submitting, artists grant ELSEHERE the right to use submitted materials for exhibition, publication, promotion, and archiving.

Questions: info@elsehereglobal.com