Artists working in any medium and writers expressing themselves in any form or genre are invited to submit work for the tenth issue of ITCH Online.
The dictators and the freedom fighters, the princesses and the plain-janes, the CEOs and the cleaners, the surburban yuppies and the shanty-town dwellers, the diamonds and the destitute, the slumlords and the paupers – will the inequalities never end? Does social justice mean equality? What kinds of equalities are possible and desirable? In all things or in some things? Which types of equality should be guaranteed, and how? What are the struggles to make life more equal and what kinds of success can or have they achieved? What would equality look like if it happened? What does inequality look like while it's happening? Is equality true democracy or pure anarchy; a nice ideal or a workable reality-in-the-making? Which promises of equality were the most outrageous and empty: those of capitalism or communism? Even when the two lines are perfectly equal – exact in dimension, shape, weight and colour – isn't there always one on top of the other? Is inequality natural or constructed? What are the narratives and experiences of (in)equality that shape global culture and society (financial meltdown, cold wars) as well as the small moments of everyday life (its your turn to cook supper!)? Measuring portions of cake, those who get to eat it and have it, those who can do neither. Forget the cake, anyone fancy a game of master and servant? The typography of 'not equal to' has a Z embedded in there somewhere (and F and N, too, plus a couple of Ts). Two lines touched by an intersection that says: NO! A railway crossed, a highway bridged: a very simple map. A pair of crosses, an incomplete hashtag (no access to Twitter?), a record of days in a prison cell? A finger across lips: a culture of secrecy, a symbol of censorship (the ultimate show of power exercised)?
What does ≠ mean to you?
You are free to interpret this theme in any way that you wish, to speak to or against it, to explore or ignore it. ITCH welcomes visual, verbal and multimedia work. More details on our submissions page.
