Open Call for Writers

Port / Harbour: An Anthology on Queer African Art
 

Obodo is inviting writers to apply for Port / Harbour, an anthology exploring queer African art through themes of movement, intimacy, memory, refuge, ecology, opacity, and belonging.

This anthology accompanies Obodo’s Artist Fund programme and brings together writers and artists in a process of close engagement, research, conversation, and documentation.

Selected writers will be paired with Nigeria-based Obodo artist-fellows and are expected to spend time engaging deeply with their artistic practices. This may include conversations with artists, studio visits, engagement with archival and digital materials, and documenting artistic processes through notes, recordings, photographs, or other methods.

The goal of the anthology is not only to document artistic practice, but to create thoughtful, critical, and creative essays that explore how queer African art shapes meaning, memory, visibility, resistance, and belonging across African contexts.

 

About the theme
 

The theme of the anthology is Port / Harbour.

Ports and harbours are places of arrival and departure, refuge and regulation, movement and interruption. They hold histories of migration, trade, survival, intimacy, displacement, and transformation.

Through this framework, the anthology asks broader questions about queer African art:

• What does art carry across borders, bodies, and histories?

• What forms of refuge can art create?

• How do artists navigate visibility and opacity?

• How do memory, inheritance, geography, and migration shape artistic practice?

Writers are encouraged to engage with the theme expansively and thoughtfully, rather than literally.

 

What We're Looking For
 

We welcome applications from writers interested in:

• queer African art

• cultural criticism

• contemporary African artistic practices

• archives and memory

• storytelling and documentation

• experimental and interdisciplinary writing

We are especially interested in writing that is clear, thoughtful, grounded, curious, and emotionally resonant.

 

About the Essays
 

Each writer will develop a focused essay rooted in sustained engagement with an assigned artist and their work.

The essays should:

• document and critically engage the artist’s practice

• situate the work within broader conversations around queer African art

• explore the artist’s materials, methods, influences, and interventions

• reflect thoughtfully on the anthology’s themes

The anthology also prioritises form and aesthetics. Writers are welcome to think expansively and may incorporate photographs, poems, maps, collages, archival inserts, or other creative elements where relevant.

 

Submission Guidelines

 

• Suggested length: 2,000–4,000 words

• File format: Word document

• Referencing style: APA

• Font: Any Serif or Sans Serif font

• Font size: 12 pt

• Line spacing: Double-spaced

• Footnotes: Use sparingly

 

Editorial Process

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Selected writers will participate in conversations with the editorial team and will go through two to three rounds of revisions depending on editorial needs.

First draft deadline: July 1, 2026.

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Important Note
 

Obodo has a strict no plagiarism and no AI policy for submitted work. Any detected plagiarism or AI-generated writing will result in immediate disqualification.

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Applications are now open.​