Open Call for Works of Art & Programming Proposals!

Paradise: a group Exhibition
curated by Graham Feyl & Jenn Sova

About the exhibition: Paradise asks: what is survival in a world with ever-ending apocalypses such as war, climate devastation, the stripping of human rights, and rampant capitalism? In the midst of these, how do those both historically and currently pushed to the margins build their own sense of paradise and create their own worlds in order to survive, connect, and seek pleasure? 

This exhibition presents paradise not as a distant place, or set in a far-off future, but one that is unbounded temporally, and has been built and rebuilt endlessly by those who have found themselves outside of normativity. We offer a queer* reading of paradise that is wrapped in endless possibility. 

*we use queer here not only regarding personal or sexual identity, but as a political framework

Open call dates: August 8th - 24th, 2025 - Decision emails out by first week of September 

- Exhibition dates: Late February through Early June, 2026 
- We are able to cover shipping costs and artist/programming stipends (based on W.A.G.E)

Our inspirations for the exhibition include: - Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage + his text Modern Nature (1991)
- Writer Olivia Laing’s quote about Jarman to: “alchemize terror into art”
- Larry Mitchell’s The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions (1977), illustrations by Ned Asta
- José Esteban Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (2009)
- adrienne marie brown’s Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (2017) & Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good (2019)

We are seeking: 
- Works across all mediums (video, installation, painting, sculpture, photography, sound, performance, etc). They can be finished past works, work in progress, or proposals for new works that fit the themes of the exhibition.
- Artists across the U.S., and specifically artists from the South and Mid-South. 
- Proposals for public programming that is dynamic, interactive, out of the box, and collaborative.
- Writers and poets who would want to share works for a public reading (probably a virtual program).
- Works within the themes: paradise, the natural world, queerness and the environment, built utopias, Ecofeminism, and survival/resistance.

About Stove Works: Stove Works' mission is to serve the Chattanooga community by providing local, national, and international artists a venue for the production of, the exhibition of, and education through contemporary works of art. 

About the curators: Graham Feyl (he/him) is an art historian, writer, educator, and curator. His scholarship privileges histories of queer and transgender artistic production, design, and material cultures, with an interest in how these intersect with the formation of popular and sexual cultures. He has curated a number of exhibitions - in Chicago, Santa Barbara and Portland - that center around similar ideas. Currently, Graham is a PhD student in the Department of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his MA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Art History, Theory and Criticism, and his B.A summa cum laude in Art History from the University of Illinois at Chicago. www.grahamfeyl.com

Jenn Sova (they/she) is an artist, organizer, and curator currently based in Portland, Oregon. Their current work and research explore gendered violence, the politics of being a body, and somatics through their queer feminist lens. Before relocating to the Pacific Northwest in 2020, Sova spent a decade in Chicago. There she received a BA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago and founded The Overlook, a nomadic arts project to support BIPOC, Femme, and Queer makers and thinkers through residencies, exhibitions, and public programming. Sova has exhibited and screened works nationally and internationally. In 2025 she launched Body of Work: Artist + Embodiment Coaching, to support artists and creatives to build deeper and sustainable connections to their bodies, art, and practices. www.sova.works

If you have any questions or need any assistance, feel free to email us at paradiseexhibition2026@gmail.com.