General Submission Guidelines:

Each published issue features a curatorial call for the next issue by a guest curator, asking artists to consider specific concepts and approaches to collage. Submitting artists always use the previous issue of Cut Me Up as raw material to cut up and transform, in response to the curatorial call.

Call for Issue 18: Winter 2027
Curated by Clive Knights

Deadline for submissions: October 1, 2026

The Fabric of the Just City

A wise teacher of mine once said that a city is the framework for the ethical interpretation of the natural conditions. The beauty of cities across the world reveals both their unique character in response to specific geographical and cultural settings, but also a deeply sensed familiarity, built around the common features of communal human experience.

The public dimension of a city, its festivals, places of worship, markets, secular institutions, streets, squares, parks and so on all embody, in their best versions, a collective human agreement on how to gather together in pursuit of the good life. But cities are never perfect, they are an ongoing project demanding the active participation of their inhabitants to ensure inclusion, continuity, and sustained meaning.

You are invited to imagine the fabric of the just city by reflecting upon one of its constituent parts and the role it plays in promoting meaningful collective experience for all those that participate in the city. In collage, explore what inspires you about this urban institution or public space and where you find value in its contribution to collective city life.

  • Consider only one of the city’s public institutions such as those that (in no particular order): codify legislation (city hall), administer justice (law court), curate collective memory (museum), engage with literature (library), dispense care (hospital), proffer education (school), enact catharsis (theater), connect with the greater-than-human (temple), incite friendly competition (stadium), encourage playful engagement with nature (park).

  • Address the particular formal and informal human activities that bring people together, such as negotiation, trade, play, transit, demonstration, and celebration.

  • Explore the specific identity of the institution or public open space and how this can be expressed metaphorically in collage without resorting to typical symbols and architectural

    imagery. We are mostly familiar with what the built fabric of these typical institutions and public open spaces looks like, but what do they mean to you and how can this content find visual presence in your collage?

  • Reveal the detail of one’s involvement with the city as such, rather than generalization, over-arching imagery, or direct reference to a particular, identifiable city.

– Clive Knights, Artist & Professor of Architecture

Issue 18 Special Submission Requirements and Exhibition at Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery

All submissions for this call will be considered for a physical exhibition at Tiger Strikes Asteroid gallery in Brooklyn, NY from January 2-31, 2027.

To ensure consistency between the publication and exhibition, please follow these requirements:

  • Directly respond to and incorporate some portion of Cut Me Up Issue 17: Razzle Dazzle.

  • Create work vertically at 12 × 9 inches on cardstock or a similar heavy substrate.

  • Keep important content at least ½″ from the top and bottom edges. Background elements may extend to the edges.

  • Flatbed scan (preferred): 12 × 9 inches at 300–600 dpi, saved as a .tif file, without resizing or resampling.

  • Photograph: Use a digital SLR camera at the highest image quality and largest image size setting (JPEG/RAW, Large/Fine). Save as a .tif file, 12 × 9 inches at 300 dpi, without resizing or resampling.

  • Limit submission to a maximum of three (3) per artist.

  • If selected, artists will be asked to prepare their 12 × 9 inch works for exhibition by mounting them on specified wooden panels (details will be provided to selected artists). Artists are responsible for shipping, return shipping, or delivery of accepted work.

  • Images may be adjusted for layout in the publication.

Submissions are free. Optional contributions to support the continuation of Cut Me Up can be made after submitting.

Send submissions via the form linked here: submissionform

Issue 18 Curator Clive Knights

Clive Knights is an English collagist and Professor of Architecture in Portland, OR. He was educated in architectural design and holds a Master of Philosophy from Cambridge University. He is inspired by the phenomenology of the human body and the hermeneutics of gesture. He has published essays on architectural theory and on the cultural value of collage and has exhibited artwork in over fifty group shows in the USA and internationally. He is represented in Portland by Laura Vincent Design & Gallery with whom he has had four solo shows since 2021, alongside solo shows in Rome & Williamsburg, VA.

Instagram: @knightsclive
Web: cliveknights.com

Cut Me Up Issue 18 will be published on January 1, 2027