FIELD, a new on-line, peer-reviewed journal devoted to socially engaged art practice, is pleased to solicit critical essays for its inaugural issue.

Socially engaged practices have expanded dramatically over the past decade and represent one of the most important new tendencies in contemporary art. At the same time the mainstream art press has largely ignored this work, focusing primarily on a handful of highly visible artists who supplement their gallery-based practice with the
creation of various collaborative or participatory projects. FIELD was created in order to foster the development of new critical paradigms capable of addressing a broad range of contemporary collaborative and socially engaged art practices. Just as these new practices often cross boundaries between art, activism, urbanism, and critical pedagogy (among many other fields), the criticism and analysis of this work requires a new, trans-disciplinary approach that moves beyond the conventions of existing art theory and criticism. We invite contributions from artists, art historians, critics, curators, theorists,
and activists, as well as scholars working across the humanities and social sciences (sociology, ethnography, philosophy, urban studies, geography, political science, etc.).

We’re especially interested in the following:

• Case studies and analyses of existing or recent projects, based on direct observation and the detailed description of actual working processes.

• Writing that develops new analytic criteria for the analysis of this work and new forms of notation suitable to performative and process based practice.

• Writing that offers new interpretations of canonical or widely cited socially engaged art projects from the past.

• Writing that employs new research methodologies and new forms of critique, and that draws on methodological and theoretical sources outside those typically found in contemporary art criticism.

• Writing that presents the voices and insights of non-artist practitioners and participants.

• Writing that draws original theoretical insight out of practice, or that uses practice to challenge the assumptions of existing art theory.

• Writing that critically examines projects situated on the border between art practice and adjacent fields and disciplines (activism, urbanism, design, education, ethnography, etc.)

We’re also interested in interviews, dialogues and debates, and book or exhibition reviews, and welcome submissions or proposals that employ any of these formats, from collective as well as singular authors. We’re open to varying word counts, but our primary focus will be on longer essays (4000-7000 words) and shorter essays, dialogues and reviews (1000-3000 words). We encourage authors to submit images or other visual materials that help to document or otherwise contextualize their writing, but we rely on authors to secure permissions if necessary. Please submit your unpublished essays and essay proposals or queries to fieldjournal1@gmail.com.

The journal plans to publish its first issue in the spring of 2015. Our first submission deadline is October 15, 2014.