As of 2016, Brooklyn is the most unaffordable housing market in the nation, Los Angeles is slowly running out of water while the traffic chips away at everyone’s sanity, and Chicago has an ever growing problem of violence and corruption in local government— but despite this, artists and hopefuls are still pouring into these cities, searching for a creative community that is unlike anywhere else in the country. Though the creative mind is in high demand, the competition is steeper than ever before, and the economy in which artists must survive is equally as unforgiving.
Aint-Bad Magazine is looking for your work. We want to see the contemporary artist building community and finding success in the American metropolis. To achieve this, we are seeking photographs and written work made by artists who are thriving, working, or simply trying to get by in New York City, Chicago, or Los Angeles. A-B is interested in artists who have uprooted and displaced themselves from home in order to continue working in the industry, or artists who have seen their very homes in these cities change from the constant influx of people seeking new life.
Are you an artist living and working in New York, LA, or Chicago? Have you created work about one of these cities in the past? We want to see how you live in the city and why. What motivates you to get out and shoot? What challenges have you experienced while keeping yourself afloat in these urban environments that are often merciless and sometimes impossible?
This call for entry will be curated into a physical publication, and in addition will be curated into a variety of exhibitions and pop up shows in each of these three cities. By submitting to this call you are eligible for both the printed publication and the gallery exhibitions.