For its inaugural issue, OffKilter is looking for creative and critical submissions which explore the theme ‘Queer Beginnings’. Both ‘queerness’ and ‘beginnings’ are hard to pin down. Queerness encompasses – but is not reducible to – identity, politics, and practice. Beginnings are similarly slippery: choose a starting point for any history, political movement, or narrative and there is always something that precedes it. But artistic beginnings are much easier to identify, even static works like paintings or sculpture must make an impression upon first look.

At the present moment, a new beginning is needed. The world is beset by a multitude of threats ranging from transphobia and racism to ecological collapse. What does the beginning of a resistance movement look like? Is it already emerging, only identifiable as such in the far future? Queer beginnings in art might grant us a better understanding of the political beginnings which will shape queer lives to come.

Read the full Call for Submissions on the Submissions page and submit via the form linked below.