Our Criteria for Accepting Submissions
Art is a medium through which we human beings witness, process, feel, hope, imagine, and create. It is a practice and a craft and a spiritual experience. As such an important factor in our experience of the world, it must be relevant in the realm of social justice. In fact, artistic engagement can build empathy, an important step along the path to justice. To that end, we deem it necessary to have a platform that accepts and publishes art that engages with justice.
We are not looking for great art, just good enough. And if it is really good, then that is a plus. We obviously won’t accept mean, cruel or hateful expressions. But if you send us your best artistic effort, and focus on what you think is important in our collective search for a more just world, then we are likely to publish it.
Perhaps you feel strongly, maybe you’re mad, sad, or scared. Maybe you have strong judgments or opinions. Maybe you are motivated to change things with hope, vision and action. If so, this is a space to express all of that. For example, it could be an op-ed, essay, poem, song, photo, or painting. Essentially, we encourage you to find the artist within you to express yourself using words, music, or visual imagery. We want to hear from you.
Leopoldo Seguel, Chief Editor and Provocateur and Zach Charles, Co-Editor
Possible Exercises to Consider
For some time now, I have been mulling over the idea of what the best use of my energy can be in this role. As Breathe starts to shift its artistic vision, I reconsidered that question. In a meeting Leopoldo and I had, he expressed his desire to do away with "grading" the art we received. I responded that while I agreed the "grading"-like structure of accepting some art and not others was counterproductive to our efforts as a venue for building social justice, I still felt it important to encourage our readers and contributors to refine their work. I feel we owe it to ourselves and to the world we live in to strip away our egos and biases, and create art that truly energizes the work of social justice. To that end, I thought that offering a series of exercises and ideas for poems and art would be a useful way I could make the energy I put through Breathe magnify its impact. I hope you will take what you find energetic and continue to engage in the necessary work of realizing art that creates a more just world. Here are four possible exercises:
Write a found poem from an article (or a few) with news you think needs to be discussed or noticed or remembered. Cut lines out from an article (or a few) with news you think needs to be discussed or noticed or remembered and paste them into a painting or use them in a collage.
Pick a location in your neighborhood that you think needs to be memorialized. Write a poem, make a painting, take a picture, etc... that juxtaposes the events you are memorializing with the native flora and fauna of the area.
Find/revisit a headline that made you react with a strong emotion - describe/draw where you were and how your body interacted with the space around you as you read the article.
Define "social justice" with particulars - not by assigning it a series of abstract ideas, but by assigning it powerful sensory details. Write a poem, make a painting, collage, take a photo, etc...
Zach Charles, Co-editor