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Call for Art: Body Sovereignty

Curator: Danni O’Brien

The body has always been contested territory. Legislated, pathologized, fetishized, disciplined — the body and its desires have rarely been left in peace, let alone in the control of the people who inhabit them.
Body Sovereignty is an exhibition about who owns our body, its expression and its sexuality.
ARC Gallery invites artists working across all media to submit work that claims for itself a radical ownership over sexuality, desire, and bodily identity. We are interested in art that refuses to be tamed — work that finds the erotic in the accidental, the absurd, the domestic, and the discarded. Work that borrows the visual language of instruction and mechanism only to subvert it. Work that is bold in its irreverence, polymorphic in its affect, and unafraid to blur lines between innocence and perversion, function and fantasy, the handmade and the found.
We are drawn to art that treats the body not as subject matter but as site of survival — art assembled from cultural cast-offs, scavenged and repurposed into something fantastical and alive. Art that is cheeky and meditative in equal measure. That takes months to resolve what was gathered intuitively. That arrives slowly at something unsettling and true.
Body Sovereignty is not about shock. It is about depth of feeling — about understanding, as Audre Lorde wrote, that the erotic is a measure of our most expansive sense of self.

We Welcome Work That:

Claims ownership over desire, sexuality, and gender on one’s own terms

Plays at the intersection of the bodily, the mechanical, and the domestic

Transforms everyday materials into something visceral and alive

Explores queer identity, conspicuous consumption, and bodily survival through a fantastical or absurdist lens

Engages the erotic through abstraction, humor, tenderness, or the uncanny — not necessarily through explicit imagery

Refuses easy categorization and sits comfortably at the edge of innocence and perversion, play and politics

Media

All media welcome, including sculpture, assemblage, ceramics, collage, painting, drawing, fiber arts, printmaking, papermaking, video, and installation. We are especially excited by hybrid works and interdisciplinary practices.

Notification of Acceptance: By email on May 6, 2026

Delivery of work to ARC: Thursday & Friday May 28 & May 29, 2026, 2-6pm; Saturday, May 30, 12-4pm

Pick-Up Work at Gallery: Saturday, June 27, 2026, 2:30-4pm

Shipped Work Return Date: First two weeks of July (determined by the delivery method)

*Pre-Paid FedEx or UPS return label is required

*Do not use the U.S. Postal Service

About the Curator: Danni O’Brien

Danni O’Brien (she/they) is a queer, interdisciplinary artist based outside Baltimore, MD. Through scavenging and collecting, O’Brien builds enigmatic sculptures and reliefs from found objects, vintage patent diagrams, handmade paper pulp, ceramics, and the cast-offs of consumer culture. Her work grapples with queer identity, dystopian survival, and conspicuous consumption — playful and absurd on the surface, deeply meditative underneath. O’Brien has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, Asya Geisberg Gallery, Hamiltonian Gallery, and the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, and has held residencies with The Wassaic Project, Baltimore Clayworks, the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency, Byrdcliffe Colony, and Stove Works, among others. She is the recipient of Individual Artist Grants from the Belle Foundation for Cultural Development and the Maryland State Arts Council.

Visit Dani @ www.danielleobrienart.com

Opening Reception, Friday, June 5th, 5:00-8:00pm

Exhibition dates: June 5-26, 2026

Gallery hours: Thurs – Fri 2-6pm, Sat – Sun 12-4 pm

This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Opportunity Website

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ARC GalleryCall For Submissions