Chinese New Year is not just a holiday. It is texture, distance, color, sound, and the kind of memory that returns before you do.

ELSEHERE is now accepting submissions for Stories of Chinese Lunar New Year, a special edition that gathers works and writing that reimagine the season through objects, places, and feeling. We are looking for pieces that are intimate, visual, and emotionally precise, as well as works that expand the idea of home, identity, and cultural remembrance across geographies.

Submission Themes

1) Touchable Memories

Start with an object and let it lead you back: fireworks, couplets, New Year prints, dumplings, wrappers, incense, red envelopes, or any everyday detail that carries a whole world inside it.

2) Where the Home Is

“Returning home” is not always possible, and home is not always a birthplace. Home is not always a location, sometimes it is a time, a person, a language, a smell. We welcome works that explore the tension between return and distance, belonging and redefinition, hometown and chosen home.

3) Spectrum of Red

Red is never only one red. We invite works that center red as subject, atmosphere, or structure, exploring its emotional range and cultural resonance.

Special Theme: Thundering Horses, Onrushing Tide

The Year of the Horse returns. We invite bold, playful, or unexpected interpretations that merge the horse motif with New Year elements, building new memories for the season.

Formats Accepted

Multimedia

• Photography (up to 5 images)

• Static digital works (illustration, poster, etc., up to 5 images)

• Video (1–3 min, Chinese + English subtitles required)

• Audio (1–3 min)
  Each submission must include a description of up to 200 words.

Text

• Short poems

• Prose
  Text submissions: up to 1000 words.

This open call is open worldwide. Individuals or collectives welcome. Emerging and established creators encouraged.

What Selected Artists Receive

Selected works will receive:

• Official feature and archival listing on ELSEHERE (a stable link for your portfolio and long-term visibility)

• Promotion via ELSEHERE’s official channels, with extended circulation through our international partner network

• Curatorial framing and editorial support to strengthen clarity, readability, and cross-cultural accessibility

• Invitation to online programs such as artist talks or thematic conversations (subject to schedule)

• Priority consideration for future opportunities with ELSEHERE, including upcoming open calls, publishing, and collaborations

Timeline

• Open: Sat, Feb 7, 2026

• Deadline: Tue, Mar 3, 2026, 23:59
  Lantern Festival (15th day of Lunar New Year)

How to submit

Submit via ELSEHERE website application page: 

To support platform operations, review, editorial production, and archiving, a submission fee applies: $20

Copyright

Copyright remains with the artist. By submitting, artists grant ELSEHERE the right to use submitted materials for exhibition, publication, promotion, and archiving.

Questions: info@elsehereglobal.com