About STRATUM Journal

ISSN 3070-8869 · Open Access

Current Issue

Articles

About
STRATUM Journal

STRATUM Journal is an international open-access journal for contemporary art, performance, visual culture, moving image, curatorial practice, and critical humanities.

Published by ELSEHERE International Arts Nexus, STRATUM supports writing that moves between artistic practice, scholarly inquiry, and critical reflection. The journal publishes research articles, critical essays, reviews, interviews, visual essays, artist portfolios, field notes, and selected experimental forms across contemporary art, culture, and the humanities.

STRATUM is committed to accessible criticism, critical depth, and plural ways of thinking across histories, languages, cultural systems, and knowledge traditions.

JOURNAL INFORMATION

Journal Title:

STRATUM Journal

Publisher:

ELSEHERE International Arts Nexus

Legal Publisher:

ELSEHERE LLC

ISSN:

3070-8869

Publication Frequency:

Seasonal

Languages:

English, with selected bilingual or translated publication

Publication Model:

Open Access

Access Model:

Free online access without subscription fees

Review Model:

Peer-reviewed research articles and editorially reviewed sections

Primary Fields:

Contemporary art, performance studies, dance studies, visual culture, moving image, curatorial studies, critical theory, and global arts and humanities

Location:

New York / Global

Contact:

stratumjournal@elsehereglobal.com

What STRATUM Publishes

STRATUM publishes across several editorial sections. Each section has its own format, review process, and editorial purpose.

Research Articles

Peer-reviewed scholarly articles that make an original contribution to contemporary art, performance, visual culture, moving image, curatorial practice, critical theory, or the global arts and humanities.

Research Articles may include abstract, keywords, references, author affiliation, ORCID when available, and received / accepted dates.

Artist Features & Portfolios

Editorially framed presentations of artistic practice, research process, documentation, visual work, performance work, moving image, installation, or project-based inquiry.

This section is for artists whose work requires visual presence, contextual framing, and critical introduction.

Critical Essays

Editorially reviewed essays that develop a critical argument, interpretive framework, or cultural analysis.

This section includes long-form writing on contemporary art, performance, visual culture, media, cultural memory, aesthetics, institutions, public life, and critical theory.

Field Notes & Public Discourse

Shorter reflections on contemporary art, culture, institutions, public life, emerging cultural conditions, public programs, and field-level observations.

This section carries forward STRATUM’s interest in public discourse while framing it through a journal context rather than a news platform model.

Reviews

Editorially reviewed writing on exhibitions, performances, books, films, screenings, public programs, festivals, and contemporary cultural discourse.

Reviews should move beyond description. They should offer critical attention to the work, its context, its form, and its artistic or cultural stakes.

Experimental Writing & Series

Serialized writing, letters, fragments, hybrid forms, creative-critical texts, and experimental editorial formats when they align with STRATUM’s scope.

This section preserves room for writing that does not fit conventional academic or critical formats while maintaining editorial selection and contextual clarity.

Interviews & Conversations

Edited conversations with artists, curators, scholars, filmmakers, writers, choreographers, researchers, cultural workers, and interdisciplinary practitioners.

This section documents process, method, artistic formation, research, and the conditions surrounding contemporary practice.

Review and Publication Model

STRATUM uses different review models for different sections.

Peer-reviewed

Research Articles are subject to peer review. After an initial editorial screening, suitable submissions may be sent to reviewers with relevant expertise in the field. Reviewers are asked to consider the submission’s originality, clarity, scholarly contribution, methodological care, engagement with existing research, and relevance to STRATUM’s scope.

Editorially reviewed

Critical Essays, Reviews, Interviews & Conversations, Artist Features & Portfolios, Field Notes, and Experimental Writing are editorially reviewed. These submissions are assessed by the editorial team for clarity, relevance, critical value, artistic significance, contextual strength, and publication readiness.

This structure allows the journal to support rigorous scholarship while making space for forms of knowledge that emerge from artistic practice, curatorial work, performance, image-making, and cultural production.

Relationship With ELSEHERE

STRATUM Journal is published by ELSEHERE International Arts Nexus, an international arts organization working across publishing, artist development, cultural production, and cross-border collaboration.

While ELSEHERE operates across multiple artistic and organizational structures, STRATUM functions as its dedicated editorial and publishing platform. Its role is to build a public record for contemporary artistic practice, critical writing, artistic research, and interdisciplinary cultural thought.

STRATUM is shaped by ELSEHERE’s broader commitment to artists, writers, researchers, and cultural practitioners working across disciplines, geographies, languages, and forms of practice.

Why STRATUM Exists

Many important works emerge before institutions know how to categorize them.

STRATUM was built for practices that move between disciplines, languages, research structures, cultural systems, and forms of public life without reducing themselves to existing templates. The journal is interested in work that carries conceptual clarity, formal intelligence, and lasting cultural resonance.

Publication is not only visibility. It is also documentation, citation, and long-term cultural presence. STRATUM publishes to widen access, deepen understanding, and support long-term cultural presence for contemporary artistic and critical practice.

Editorial Commitment

STRATUM believes editorial work requires care, context, and intellectual responsibility.

The journal is committed to accessible criticism, plural knowledge traditions, and editorial approaches that question inherited cultural hierarchies. We believe that accessibility and rigor can coexist, and that critical writing should open difficult ideas without flattening them.

STRATUM values readability, intellectual generosity, and plural ways of thinking across histories, languages, and knowledge systems. We are especially interested in writing that can hold complexity while remaining legible to artists, scholars, curators, writers, and culturally engaged readers.

We work across visual art, performance, moving image, writing, sound, installation, research, and hybrid forms. We pay attention to how work moves through history, language, geography, institutions, publics, and cultural memory.

We publish to widen access, deepen understanding, and support long-term cultural presence for contemporary artistic and critical practice.

For Contributors

STRATUM welcomes submissions from artists, scholars, curators, critics, writers, filmmakers, choreographers, and interdisciplinary researchers.

We currently consider research articles, critical essays, reviews, interviews, visual essays, artist portfolios, field notes, and selected experimental forms.