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UNSTAGED

@unstaged.lab

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Narrative-led anthological inquiries into comforting & discomforting authenticity | Founder: @arek_ratai
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Explore the themes below:

No new calls.
We are taking our ease.

—

GUIDELINES:

• Selection: 5–10 photographs
• Format: JPG, long edge 2000px
• Quality: 300 DPI (essential for print curation)
• Colour Mode: Grayscale for all B&W images
• Context: Project description (max. 500 words)

• NO submission fee | NO contribution fee

Submission Process:
Please name your files: Name_Project Title_01

Upload your work to Google Drive and send the link to: opencall@un-staged.com

Note on curation: Your Google Drive folder MUST include the project description (preferably as a PDF), and the link must be set to public access. In our effort to keep the process organized, emails with direct attachments will not be considered.

On the cover: A glimpse of the first edition of the UNSTAGED Anthology, featuring a photograph by Ben Osborne (@b.e.n.osborne). taken in Worldwide by @unstaged.lab

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4 months ago

UNSTAGED is expanding. What began as a publishing platform is evolving into a dedicated cultural space and research lab focused on authenticity and critical thought.

To grow this vision independently, I'm looking for long-term collaborators. I want to create a connection between academic discourse and artistic expression.

Simply DM. taken in Worldwide by @unstaged.lab

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4 months ago

WE KNOW

A website is long overdue.

While we build our digital home, here is a look back at the anthologies we’ve brought to life so far.

For each volume, we hand over the reins to a guest artist. They set the open-call theme and serve as guest curator, guiding the publication to its final form.

Bound in a solid A5 portrait hardcover, each volume features 80 interior pages printed on Mohawk Superfine Eggshell 120 gsm paper for a distinct finish.

Published volumes (in reverse chronological order).

Remembered Vol. 2
Ghosts in the Archives
Guest Curation: Dashen Zhang
ISBN 978-83-983250-1-1

Reimagined Vol. 1
Ghosts in the Archives
Guest Curation: Dashen Zhang
ISBN 978-83-983250-0-4

Anthology — Relational Ecologies
Guest Curation: Dr Morganna Magee
ISBN 978-83-983250-2-8

Anthology — The Sky Is Not Forever Blue, vol. 2
Guest Curation: D. M. Terblanche
ISBN 978-83-980236-3-4

Anthology — The Sky Is Not Forever Blue, vol. 1
Guest Curation: D. M. Terblanche
ISBN 978-83-980236-2-7

Anthology — Silence
Guest Curation: Kjetil Karlsen
ISBN 978-83-980236-5-8

Anthology — Apophenic
Guest Curation: William Josephs Radford
ISBN 978-83-980236-1-0

Anthology — Essence: vol. II
Guest Curation: Susann Carmen Jagodzińska
ISBN 978-83-980236-0-3

Anthology — Essence: vol. I
Guest Curation: Susann Carmen Jagodzińska
ISBN 978-83-980236-9-6

Anthology — Substratum
Art Direction & Design: Arek Ratai
ISBN 978-83-980236-8-9

Anthology — Impermanence: vol. II
Art Direction & Design: Arek Ratai
ISBN 978-83-980236-7-2

Anthology — Impermanence: vol. I
Guest Curation: Ben Osborne
ISBN 978-83-980236-6-5

• Orders via link in bio by @unstaged.lab

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2 months ago

In Black Box, Eva Grillhoesl confronts her grandfather’s legacy as a World War II transport pilot through archival photographs and personal intervention.

As Eva writes:

"Black Box navigates between an intimate exploration of my family history and a societal reckoning that, against the backdrop of radical political trends, is more relevant and important than ever."

Today's radicalism wears different uniforms. How long before the good citizens start cheering for the fire again?

Soon in Ghosts Vol. III. taken in Germany by @unstaged.lab

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10 hours ago

Ilija Jan Vuletić digs through old photographs to figure out who he really is.

He pokes around a dead grandfather's workshop, looking at a yellow hat and a buried gun, trying to patch together a family tree full of holes.

He stares straight into the family mirror to see whether he is carving out his own life, his own identity.

A few questions he keeps asking:

"In this process of exploring one's own family archives, does an individual shape their own identity, or does he shape the identities of other family members?"

"Are dead family members tailoring the identity of the person investigating them?"

Soon in the third volume of Ghosts titled Inherited. taken in Unlocated.. by @unstaged.lab

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a day ago

III

Over the next few days, I will be sharing selected works from the third volume of the Ghosts trilogy, titled Inherited.

Inherited marks the final chapter of a trilogy we have spent the past few months working on alongside our guest curator, Dashen Zhang.

The cover features a photograph by Bettina Koller; it's from her project, Mothering (the mother), about the ambivalence of motherhood and maternal loneliness.

That said, with the publication of this final volume, UNSTAGED will again morph into a lab for experimental open calls.

Thank you for following this journey with us. taken in Motherhood by @unstaged.lab

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4 days ago

When the grandfather dies and they tear his house down, family history turns into an empty hole.

Noboru Yurugi digs through those ruins and tries to patch together his own roots from what is left of the loss.

This project will appear in the anthology Inherited, the third and final volume closing this trilogy. taken in Japan by @unstaged.lab

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2 days ago

In Always Love Each Other, Never Get Married, Maria Vittoria Desiato takes what she saved from the trash and looks at the wreckage of her parents' early life.

Can you put a life back together with several rescued pictures?

Soon, in the third and final Ghost volume called Inherited. taken in Italy by @unstaged.lab

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2 days ago

UNSTAGED Anthology Vol. 2: Remembered is now available. Secure your copy through the link in bio.

My gratitude goes to Dashen Zhang, whose diligence and artistic vision as guest curator shaped this volume.

This journey has proven immensely rewarding, anchored by the intellectual rigor of creative communion. Thereby, many thanks to the visual thinkers who breathed life into these pages:

Chiara Benzi, Barbara Diener, Friderike Heuer, Olga Kim, Lagos Studio Archives, Shanna Merola, Hélène Mutter, Adeline Praud, Anna Sellen, Alessandro Silverj, Klara Kusa.

The selections shown here provide merely a fragment of each photographer's wider project.

First edition published by UNSTAGED | 2026
© To the artists for their respective images
© Cover image by Eva Grillhoesl
© 2026 Arek Ratai UNSTAGED taken in Unlocated.. by @unstaged.lab

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5 days ago

At 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945, an unfathomable flash of light stretched across the vast expanse of desert sky in Alamogordo, NM. The atomic sublime – born at this moment without referent – unleashed a new era of fallout, fear, and post-modern dread. Over the next few decades, drifting radioactive debris from nuclear testing carried out a silent, molecular attack on the DNA of downwind communities across the American West. Trinity, the first of countless ecologically devastating explosions, also marked the inception of a covert government program that calculated, measured, and monitored the effects of this fallout. Decades later, declassified government documents revealed that the people and animals inhabiting these sacrifice zones were known collateral damage, otherwise referred to as “a low-use segment of the population”.

This project is a fragment of Shanna Merola's work and will be featured in the second volume of the Ghosts in the Archives anthology, titled Remembered. taken in Atomic by @unstaged.lab

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9 days ago

The Escaping project reinterprets GDR escapes and Stasi archives, explores surveillance and the human longing for freedom, and questions how systems of power still shape bodies and borders today.

This project is a fragment of Klara Kusa's work and will be featured in the second volume of the Ghosts in the Archives anthology, titled Remembered. taken in Unlocated.. by @unstaged.lab

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8 days ago

Accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake in 1523, Margherita "Madregna" opens a chilling chronicle of systemic control over female autonomy.

Have the fires of the Inquisition truly gone out?

The following project by Alessandro Silverj will soon be part of Remembered Vol. 2, heading to print. taken in Unlocated.. by @unstaged.lab

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8 days ago