Art can give form to what ordinary speech cannot hold, can capture the feeling of an era, preserve what is being forgotten, and make visible what has been buried beneath noise, spectacle, and habit.
Begin your submission
Art can give form to what ordinary speech cannot hold, can capture the feeling of an era, preserve what is being forgotten, and make visible what has been buried beneath noise, spectacle, and habit.
Begin your submissionIn a rapidly changing world, one that often feels as though the very fabric of society is coming undone, we are surrounded by promises of peace, happiness, comfort, freedom, and endless choice.
Yet beneath these promises, many of us find exhaustion, alienation, distraction, politico-economic injustice, and a deep uncertainty about how to navigate it all as believers.
What does it mean to witness all of this as Muslims?
What does it mean to behold the upheaval of this age while still believing, with confidence, that the world can be directed toward loftier ends, prophetic values, and more beautiful modes of being?
What does it mean to insist that beauty can still be expressed amid the chaos, and that those who witness will be held accountable for what they have seen?
How, then, do we turn witness into faithful creation?
The prompt
At Nuun Collective, we believe artists serve most powerfully as witnesses in this hour.
We invite you to create work that captures what it feels like to be Muslim today.
Your work may explore the emotions, struggles, achievements, questions, uncertainties, contradictions, and patterns of thought that shape the Muslim experience in the modern world. It may reflect the pain, alienation, and difficulty of navigating our present age, or the beauty, hope, and dreams we hold for ourselves and the world around us. It can also engage with futurism, expressing the imaginative potential of the world as it could be.
This exhibition is an invitation to bear witness: to the world as you experience it, to what weighs on your heart, to what gives you strength, and to what you are still trying to understand.
The visual identity
Drawing on the Qur'anic image of hands and feet bearing witness when mouths are sealed, the thumbprint presents witnessing as the body itself becoming a record, something more than mere external observation.
A thumbprint is used when something must be verified, proven, or placed on record. It reminds visitors that they are not passive spectators, and that what they witness will leave a trace and, indeed, will place a weighty responsibility upon them.
We welcome artists working across every medium
We are especially interested in work that challenges narrow assumptions about what “Islamic art” is expected to look like.
Muslim artistic expression cannot be confined to devotional calligraphy or the familiar flowing leaf patterns reminiscent of the Arabesque style. While recognising the immense depth and beauty of these artforms, we seek work that expands and reimagines the visual languages through which Muslim life, thought, memory, faith, and experience in this new epoch are represented.
Before you begin
Name, contact, Instagram or portfolio link.
Title, category, and 300 words on how it responds to the Witness prompt.
Dimensions in inches, weight in pounds, how it's shown, and what it needs to run.
Finished photographs or in-progress shots. Under 10 MB each.
Whether the work is for sale, and your price.
International submissions are welcome. Artists outside the host country are responsible for the cost of shipping work to and from the exhibition, in both directions.
The form
All fields marked * are required. Your submission is reviewed by the Nuun selection committee.
Received
Thank you. Your submission has reached the Nuun selection committee, and we'll be in touch once your work has been reviewed. If you need to amend anything, write to us and quote your piece title.
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