Work that would not end.

The piece that stayed with you long after the premiere, the deadline, the upload, the rejection.

The work that keeps returning in your body, your memory, your hard drive, your notes.

The thing you moved on from, but that never quite moved on from you.

Works That Will Not End invites you to bring these unfinished, ongoing, remanent works into a new field of attention.

Some works never resolve into a single version, a single night, a single file.

They linger as gestures, drafts, scores, rehearsal footage, screenshots, voice notes, fragments of text.

They survive in bodies and drives, in attachments and unsent emails.

They have circulations that do not fit the usual routes of festival, gallery, publication or feed.

For ELSEHERE, these are not failed or incomplete works.

They are remanent practices:

forms that insist on another timing, another reading, another way of being present.

We are not asking for your newest or most polished project.

We are asking for the work that refused to be over.

The work that still breathes between worlds.

What we are looking for

We welcome proposals from:

artists, writers, choreographers, filmmakers, performers
sound artists, designers, coders, researchers, cultural workers
people who move between any of the above

You can be working in any medium, including but not limited to:

performance, dance, embodied practice
film, video, moving image, VR or hybrid formats
sound, voice, music, expanded listening
installation, drawing, photography, publishing, zines
essays, scripts, scores, field notes, experimental writing
archives, collections, personal or institutional leftovers

We are especially interested in works that:

were underfunded, underseen or misread
only existed briefly, in rehearsal or in a small room
live mostly as documentation or fragments
never found a “proper” context or category
keep informing your thinking and practice in ways that are hard to summarise

What to submit

Please send us:

The work, or a trace of the work
video link (Vimeo, YouTube, private link is fine)
or 5–10 images in a single PDF
or up to 2 000 words of text (excerpt or full)
or audio up to 10 minutes
or a combination of materials that best situates the work
A short statement (up to 300 words) that addresses:
How did this work first come into the world(a night, a show, a rehearsal, a document, a commission, a refusal)
In what sense has it not ended for you(body memory, recurring image, ongoing research, unresolved question)
How do you imagine its next life or next form, if any

You do not need to frame the work as a “project proposal”.

We are interested in the actual residue and the way it continues to act.

Selected artists will receive:

Inclusion in “Works That Will Not End – Volume 0”

a digital publication or dossier that forms the first layer of ELSEHERE’s archive; potential excerpts in ELSEHERE Journal and related platforms

A public program moment

an online or physical screening, reading or listening session
conversation or short interview, where appropriate

International exposure

Selected works will be featured across ELSEHERE’s channels with full credit to the artist, including the ELSEHERE website and social platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Xiaohongshu (RED), WeChat and Bilibili.

Submission:

Submission fee: $20

In return, every applicant will receive:

Confirmation that your work has been fully viewed by the ELSEHERE team
A brief curatorial note or signal of reception wherever possible(this may be a short line, a question, or a suggested point of connection)
Early access to future ELSEHERE open calls, programs and gatherings

The fee is not for evaluation alone.

It supports the time required to encounter your work as more than a scroll.

Timeline

Open call launch: 01/05/2026
Deadline: 02/05/2026
Public announcement and Volume 0 release: 02/20/2026

Selection process

Submissions will be reviewed by the ELSEHERE core team with invited collaborators from performance, moving image, and writing.

We are not looking for a single aesthetic or discipline.

We are looking for works that carry afterlives.

Works that keep asking for a place to stay, a way to be seen, a way to remain in circulation.

EDITIONS

#Works That Will Not End

What is the work that would not end. The thing you moved on from, but that never quite moved on from you.

Upcoming

February 5, 2026