ROMA MITICA invites artists to contribute original artworks for an upcoming limited edition art book exploring themes of women in the art world today, forgotten artists, remembered artists, elitism, erasure, recuperation of memory, tradition and legacy.

Artemisia Gentileschi, born in Rome in 1593, is widely considered to be the greatest female artist who has ever lived. As a girl, she was raped, humiliated, and ostracised. Yet she refused to be diminished and fought back, determined to work, marry, and be a mother. She became internationally celebrated and her art brought her the independence of financial success and great renown. After her death, she was forgotten for centuries - brought back only recently to consciousness by a handful of determined feminist art historians.

ROMA MITICA asks: why and how was she forgotten? To whom else has this happened ? And is it still happening ?

How do women experience themselves and their work in the art world today ? How are they received ? How are they excluded ? How are they diminished and forgotten ? How are they celebrated and remembered ?

Women have long been the subject of art. As the Guerrilla Girls Collective pointed out in 1985, 85% of the nudes in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City are of women, while less than 4% of the artists are women. How much of that has that changed ? And how much of that change is tokenism ? Now that black women artists are included, where are the Mediterraneans ? Why do we know the names of so many Northern contemporary artists and so few of the Southern ? Especially women.

ROMA MITICA invites international artists to address this issue in their practice for publication in book form, where we think together about this pressing issue of our time .

Direct engagement with Artemisia Gentileschi’s life or oeuvre is welcome but not obligatory; submissions may also adopt contemporary, critical, allegorical, or speculative frameworks that resonate with her legacy.

Selected artists will be published in the edited volume and will receive a complimentary copy of the first edition.

Read the Open Call guidelines below carefully.

Eligibility

• Open to artists of all nationalities and backgrounds.

• Emerging and established artists are welcome.

• Both individual artists and collectives may apply.

Conceptual Focus

Submissions should engage with one or more of the following themes:

• Looking at Artemisia’s work and responding to her themes and message

• Identification with Artemisia’s suffering, courage and determination

• Women artists personal lived-experience as artists and of the art world

• Artistic erasure, recovery and rediscovery

• Forgotten, marginalised or overlooked artists

• Gender, power, and authorship in art history

• Tokenistic inclusion in exhibitions

• Financial disparity in promotion and sales

• Marginalisation of Mediterranean artists from Europe, Africa and Asia

• Trauma both personal and generational in being an excluded voice or part of an excluded group

• Memory, justice and historical repair

• Institutional silence and systemic exclusion

• Feminist perspectives of art history and how these have changed the lived experience of contemporary female artists

• The impact of #metoo in the art world and for artists

• The impact of BLM in bringing black artists to the fore, and why this has not (yet) included Mediterranean peoples

• Who does the art world serve ? Why should it be taken for granted that it is the buying elites to the exclusion of the consuming masses ?

• Why is there so little public art of beauty, usefulness and durability commissioned for the collective ?

• Why does the art world feel like a quasi-religious cult ? How does that make you feel ? How does it affect your creativity ?

• Why can’t we establish the common good with shared spaces for cultural exchange ? What would that look like ? How would you do it ?

• When did art start to be celebrated for nihilism and egotism ? How does that make you feel as an artist? As a human ?

• How can a new generation create to bring hopefulness and consolation in difficult and dangerous times ? How can we contribute to that as artists ?

• Maybe bread and circuses isn’t such a bad idea ? Maybe we need something that brings us together locally ? What would this be ?

• Maybe our governments could facilitate this kind of social outreach ?

• Perhaps we can all resist participating in top-down phoney consumerist mass-market international “culture”, and instead fight for bottom-up sharing of values and traditions celebrated by local people ? Perhaps such characterful microcosms are more rewarding even to the international macrocosm in the long run ?

• Could it be that the story of Artemisia’s life and death teach us that crushing a butterfly under a wheel makes us all the poorer and sader ? Could it be that, in the end, that same butterfly that flapped its wings 400 years ago, still has the power to cause a hurricane in our times ?

Direct references to Artemisia Gentileschi are welcome but not required. Contemporary, critical, or speculative approaches are encouraged.

Accepted Media

Artists may submit works in any of the following mediums, including but not limited to:

• Painting

• Drawing

• Printmaking

• Photography

• Sculpture

• Installation

• Textile or mixed media

• Digital art

• Archival, research-based, or conceptual practices

Time-based or performance works may be considered only if they can be effectively represented through still images and text in a book format.

Submission Requirements

Applicants must submit:

1. Artwork documentation

   • We recommed submitting high-resolution images

2. Artist statement

   • Describing the conceptual relationship to the project

3. Artist biography

4. Technical details

   • Title, year, medium, dimensions, and image credit information

5. Receipt of donation a to Fondazione Stanta Francesca Romana.

   • The recommended amount of donation is 20€. If you are in need of financial assistance in making the donation, please contact us via email and we will advice you further.

   • The donations of this Open Call support the Foundation of Santa Francesca Romana, a home caring for the elderly, founded in 1420 by the Doria Pamphilj family in Rome's Trastevere. ROMA MITICA is proud to support this important work in favour of the dignity of old age and the natural end of life.

Selection Process

• Submissions will be reviewed by the editor and curatorial team.

• Selection will be based on conceptual relevance, artistic quality, and diversity of perspectives.

• Selected artists will be notified by email.

Artist Compensation

• Each selected artist will receive one complimentary copy of the published book in which their work appears.

• The project does not include an artist fee or production budget.

• Artists retain full copyright to their works and grant non-exclusive rights for reproduction in the publication and related promotional materials.

Publication

• Selected works will be reproduced in the book alongside curatorial and scholarly texts.

• Image credits and artist biographies will be included.