Please see our submission guidelines for instructions.
THE COLLECTIVE
What does it mean to create, act, and stand together as a collective in an age defined by fragmentation, dissociation, and algorithmic individuation?
This issue of Drain invites artists, writers, curators, designers, and thinkers to reflect on the collective as a mode of making, thinking, and being together. At a moment when authorship is increasingly atomized, productivity individualized, and creativity measured through metrics and automation, the collective resurfaces as both strategy and necessity: a way to resist isolation, redistribute agency, and generate forms that exceed the singular voice.
We are interested in historical and contemporary models of collectivity, as well as speculative, affective, and resistant forms that challenge dominant narratives of authorship and originality. Contributions might explore how collectives function across artistic, political, social, and technological contexts, or how they fracture, fail, regenerate, or mutate.
Possible themes and questions include (but are not limited to):
- Coming together as practice, method, or survival strategy
- Blurred or shared authorship and the refusal of the singular genius
- Artist collectives and collaborative infrastructures
- Collaboration in public art, social practice, and activist contexts
- Collective printmaking and workshop-based production
- The atelier model and “old school” collective making
- Human collectivity in relation to, or in excess of, AI systems
- Collectivism, cooperation, and solidarity under late capitalism
- The collective unconscious and shared affect
- The team (sport, labor, performance) as collective form
- The orchestra, ensemble, or choir as models of coordination
- Gestalt thinking and forms that are more than the sum of their parts
We welcome submissions that are speculative, critical, curatorial, or experimental. Contributions may address the collective as lived experience, historical formation, political imaginary, and, or aesthetic strategy.
Submission formats may include:
- Scholarly or critical essays
- Artist writings and project statements
- Visual essays, documentation, or scores
- Interviews or conversations
- Manifestos, propositions, or collective statements
- Experimental or hybrid forms
We particularly encourage submissions from collectives, co-authored teams, and non-hierarchical collaborations.
Drain is committed to publishing work that expands the possibilities of critical and creative exchange. This issue asks: not only what we make together, but what becomes possible when “together” is the starting point.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: July 15, 2026
Please send submissions to: Avantika Bawa