Open Call: Shenzhen’s Singularity Festival Wants Your Weird Art

Are you into creating fun, weird, engaging or outlandish illustrations but short on international venues in which to display them? Then you’re in luck: Guangzhou’s Singularity Festival is gearing up for its third edition in April, and they’ve just put out an open call for non-Chinese exhibitors.

RADII was in the building for last year’s fest, which was heavy on artists from Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong and full of rad prints from the fringes of China’s illustration/comics scene:

Recap: Guangzhou’s Singularity Festival Showcases Vibrant Independent Art from Across China

Article Sep 06, 2018

Singularity Festival is an outgrowth of Singularity Plan, a collection of artists and organizers co-founded by taboo-transgressing illustrator Tony Cheung. It’s the self-described “most important event in the field of independent illustrations and comics in China,” and is a 100% DIY affair, seeking artists from around the world who “represent the spirit of independent creation.” “We just choose all the creators who conform to the Singularity Plan artistic temperament and have independent creative state to participate in the exhibition,” the organizers say.

Related:

“Playing Games with Taboo”: Tony Cheung on Art, China, and “Endless Physical Satisfaction”

"Speaking about violence and sex, these are still a big taboo according to the authorities, or even mainstream values, which also lures me to break the limitation"

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Singularity Festival does not charge a fee for participants hoping to display and sell their work, but you do need to go through a formal application process to get in on the action. Interested parties can find more pointers on Singularity Plan’s mission and an application form right here. The application deadline is March 1, with selected artists being announced on March 8. (The festival itself happens from April 12-14 at the Horizon Hall of Shenzhen Sea World Culture & Art Center.)

And if you’re more of a collector than a creator, consider backing this underground Chinese comics printing project that’s in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign:

Kickstart This: Underground Chinese Comics Anthology

New York-based publisher Paradise Systems has teamed up with artist Yan Cong to translate and publish Naked Body, an ambitious, 100-page anthology of underground comics from China

Article Jan 30, 2019