Open Call: Laughing Matter

We are inviting artists to propose their artistic projects for the upcoming sixth issue of the ETC. Magazine titled Laughing Matter!

ETC. is an annual showcase magazine dedicated to presenting current artistic production from the Balkans to the Baltics. The most comprehensive section of the magazine is the Portfolio Showcase, presenting selected artworks and projects in detail, consisting of a visual presentation and a text written by the curatorial team. The projects will be chosen and curated by the magazine’s curators (Lara Mejač and Ajda Ana Kocutar) and this issue’s guest curator, Vera Zalutskaya.

This year’s topic: 
We consider humour to be an instinctual quality, a trait fundamental to being human, but laughter has never been distributed equally. The line between satire and cruelty is woefully unstable, and the problematic aspects of “making fun” are becoming louder in recent discourse. Those without privilege are often the butt of the joke, be it by stand-up comedians or politicians, and some are rightfully calling on the jokers to take responsibility. While the term “cancel culture” becomes shorthand for a much murkier reckoning, we ask: can you really “not make jokes anymore”, or is it worth looking at who was and wasn’t laughing in the first place?

Humour and joy have often been useful tools of resistance. From caricature, which has always explored power dynamics and class relations, to modern-day memes, humour has often been the last available form of dissent, a way to say what cannot be said outright. It has the potential to bring together friends, families, and communities. It can be a shared, embodied experience that closes distance between strangers; to quote the well-known proverb, it’s sometimes the best medicine in a world that gives us much to despair over.

Humour circulates faster than ever. While meme culture is a form of bonding, it also has a darker side. Online, irony and satire are often camouflage for prejudice that hides under the pretense of a joke, amplified by algorithms that reward provocation. On the other hand, is laughing at the political absurdities we see every day all we have left? A form of coping, or perhaps complicity? And what is lost, or found, in translation – can a joke survive the journey from one language, one context, into another? Laughing Matter invites artists and writers to sit with both the joy and discomfort of humour: its cruelty and its kindness, its power to include and wound. Humour, as it turns out, is no laughing matter.

If you think your artistic project or work would fit the topic, send us your project proposal to: curators@etcmagazine.art.

Application deadline: 30. 11. 2026

• artists submitting an existing project
  
• emerging artists (haven’t had major publishing deals, major exhibitions, or retrospectives yet)
• based or coming from anywhere between the Baltics and the Balkans

• a project published in the sixth issue of ETC. Magazine 

• an invitation to exhibit your work in ETC. exhibition projects or screenings (subject to sufficient funding)
• presentations on our digital platforms

• contact information
  

• written description of the project
  If it was written by anyone other than the applicant, it should be signed with their full name underneath. Include any additional credits or funding sources at your own discretion.
  
  
• visual presentation of the project
  In the application stage, high-res images are not necessary; any video or audio files should be included as links rather than attachments.
  
  
• short biography
  
  
• portfolio / web page / Instagram