JAWS: Journal of Arts Writing by Students Call for Papers, Peer Reviewers and Editorial Assistant

JAWS: Journal of Arts Writing by Students Call for Papers, Peer Reviewers and Editorial Assistant

Special Issue: ‘For future reference: Art and design activism’

Art and Design have been partners for a long time, but how has this partnership been manifesting lately? This issue is calling for enquiries into art-and-design in times when sustainability is not enough, when discussing how to resolve problems is not enough.

We observe that the artists’ and the designers’ mindsets are slowly shifting towards taking hold of the opportunities that come with giving back to what we have been taking from. In a pluralistic environment, this issue wants to foster forward-looking leads on the planetary issues we are experiencing.

While social, political and environmental activism takes place, both art and design have been contributing to the advancement of such proposals for protest and action. On the one hand, design has developed an increasingly experimental approach to problem-solving grounded in speculative thinking. On the other hand, art has developed many performative intervention strategies to engage critically and widely with communities.

The design process and the art experience are changing towards a more active role of ethics over aesthetics. How are these changes manifesting? Our relationship with these discourses is also changing from simply being consumers and viewers, to participants and collaborators.

In addition, we are witnessing a vibrant range of collaborative practices across both art and design, where principals from both disciplines intersect to pose and tackle many contemporary questions. Within this interdisciplinarity, hybrids emerge. JAWS would like to invite articles that detect where these intersections occur in the realm of activism, and especially those arising from practice-based studies.

We want to explore questions about how and where these changes are happening, how they are pursued and what the role of art and design is in effecting the change that is taking place in our (collective) imaginaries. 

We would be interested in receiving writing that explores (but not limited to):

• Is the design process of an artist the same as any other ‘artifact’ designer? 

• How can questions and methods regarding decolonisation, queerness and disability contribute to meaningful intersections of design and art?

• How do art, science and design relate to each other in our post-anthropocentric world? What interdisciplinary boundaries are there? 

• What is the role of art and design in the regenerative movement?

• Is activism art? Isn’t art supposed to be about disruption and destabilizing, so how can ameliorating an issue be art? 

• How have our notions of art changed? Has design influenced these changes? Has this happened conversely? 

• How does an acentric world view reveal the fundamental issues in the anthropogenic nature of art and design?

• What defines collective and collaborative practices? How do participatory art and design practices contribute to a ‘better future’? 

We accept the following formats: 

• Academic and/or Practice-based submissions up to 6000 words

• Interviews up to 4000 words

• Exhibition/book Reviews between 1000 and 3000 words

• Opinion articles between 1000 and 3000 words

We only accept submissions in MS Word -- do not send PDFs.

Please send three files to p.e.jawsjournal@gmail.com until the 12th February 2023: 

• your article (which should include an abstract of 100-200 words, 6-8 keywords or two word phrases that are not in the title, and your references list in Harvard Style)

• a folder with your images at 300 dpi minimum

• a cover document with the following information: 

-Article’s title

-Author’s full name, university affiliation, most recent programme

-ORCID iD

-Bio of up to 200 words

-Email and postal address

We are a volunteer-run journal so we appreciate your patience during the peer-reviewing process.

Call for Peer Reviewers:

The journal editors are seeking MA students, Ph.D. students, scholars and post-graduate art practitioners working in the various fields of art to act as peer reviewers for the journal. Our issues are not usually themed, and our network of peers fluctuates as does the body of students every year. We publish articles spanning the entire spectrum of arts research, so your expertise is likely to be valuable for our network. Peer review is a vital part of academic publishing, enriching the field and improving the work of writers and peer reviewers alike. We encourage reviewers from diverse backgrounds and experiences to join the peer review pool.

To sign up for future peer reviews, please contact the Principal Editor, Inês Ferreira-Norman at p.e.jawsjournal@gmail.com. Please provide a CV and a sample of your own writing.

Call for Editorial Assistant:

JAWS is looking for an editorial assistant to support the administrative duties of a very small team of editors. If you are looking into gaining experience in the ins and outs of how to run an exciting peer-reviewed journal, this is a fantastic opportunity to grow within the industry and to contribute to the development of a project that has been supporting students and emerging authors for the last six years. 

Please email p.e.jawsjournal@gmail.com with your CV and a short letter stating why you are interested in contributing to JAWS.