Each year we carry the Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar by the Certain Days Collective, and each year they sell out fast. They’re broadcasting their call for imagery and writing for next year’s calendar, see below for details!
(above image by image by UB Topia from the 2018 calendar)
What: A call for art and article submissions on Health/Care for the 2019 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar.
Deadline: May 18, 2018
The Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar collective is releasing its 18th calendar this coming fall. The theme for 2019 is ‘Health/Care,’ reflecting on the overlapping topics of health, care/caring, and healthcare.
We are looking for 12 works of art and 12 short articles to feature in the calendar, which hangs in more than 3,000 homes, workplaces, prison cells, and community spaces around the world.
We encourage contributors to submit both new and existing work. We also seek submissions from prisoners – please forward to any prison-based artists and writers.
THEME GUIDELINES
In 1972, The Black Panther Party formally added healthcare to its ten point program:
WE WANT COMPLETELY FREE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE
We believe that the government must provide, free of charge, for the people, health facilities which will not only treat our illnesses, most of which have come about as a result of our oppression, but which will also develop preventive medical programs to guarantee our future survival.
Then, as now, health in all its dimensions — physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, environmental, community — remains fundamental to liberation. Some of the topics that could be explored within this theme could be:
- health care and medical neglect in prison
- movement healthcare projects (anything from the Black Panther Party free clinics, to current projects providing both western medical and other forms of health support)
- radical reproductive health projects, past and present
- the politics of care work in its myriad forms (care for people living with illness and/or disability, childcare, elder care, etc)
- mad pride and resistance to forced psychiatric treatment
- aging and health issues in prison
- disability and health
- Indigenous healing and other non-western health practices and projects
- trans health projects and activism
- radical organizing among health care workers and/or in defence of public healthcare
medical parole - strategies for, and stories of, (collective and individual) self care within movements
FORMAT GUIDELINES
ARTICLES:
• 500 words max. If you submit a longer piece, we will have to edit for length.
• Poetry is also welcome but needs to be significantly shorter than 500 words to accommodate layout.
• Please include a suggested title.
ART:
1. The calendar is 11” tall by 8.5” wide, so art with a ‘portrait’ orientation is preferred. Some pieces may be printed with a border, so it need not fit those dimensions exactly.
2. We are interested in a diversity of media (paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, computer-designed graphics, collage, etc).
3. The calendar is printed in colour and we prefer colour images.
Due to time and space limitations, submissions may be lightly edited for clarity, with no change to the original intent.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
1. Send your submissions by May 18, 2018 to info@certaindays.org.
2. ARTISTS: Please send images smaller than 10 MB. You can send a low-res file as a submission, but if your piece is chosen, we will need a high-res version of it to print (600 dpi).
3. You may send as many submissions as you like. Chosen artists and authors will receive a free copy of the calendar and promotional postcards. Because the calendar is a fundraiser, we cannot offer money to contributors.
Prisoner submissions are due June 8, 2018 and can be mailed to:
Certain Days c/o
Burning Books
420 Connecticut Street
Buffalo, NY 14213
USA
ABOUT THE CALENDAR
The Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar is a joint fundraising and educational project between outside organizers in Montreal, Hamilton, New York and Baltimore, with three political prisoners being held in maximum-security prisons in New York State: David Gilbert, Robert Seth Hayes and Herman Bell. The initial project was suggested by Herman, and has been shaped throughout the process by all of our ideas, discussions, and analysis. All of the members of the outside collective are involved in day-to-day organizing work other than the calendar, on issues ranging from refugee and immigrant solidarity to community media to prisoner justice. We work from an anti-imperialist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, feminist, queer and trans positive position.
