ROMA MITICA invites artists to contribute original artworks for an upcoming limited edition art book dedicated to the Mediterranean Sea.

In this moment of over-development, degrading tourism, and ecological crisis, let us reclaim our heritage by sharing in art our desires, delights, and dreams as creatives living on the shores of a sea that does not divide but unites.

This sea spills onto Europe, Africa, and Asia. This is a sea where peoples meet and mingle. For millennia, we have exchanged wares, wars, culture, ideas, loves, and losses. Let us remember our sea and what it has brought us.

It is the sea of the return of Odysseus and the arrival of Aeneas, of merchants and pirates, of crusaders and refugees, of tourists and fishermen. It unites continents while dividing nations. It promises infinity, while enclosing history.

ROMA MITICA seeks to interrogate the Mediterranean not as backdrop, but as protagonist: a body of water that generates culture, conflict, longing and belonging.

We welcome submissions that engage the Mediterranean Sea as geography, archive, border, womb, cradle, and grave—an enduring symbol of exchange, migration, conflict, lculture and memory..

Direct depiction of the Mediterranean Sea is welcome but not obligatory; submissions may also adopt contemporary, political, ecological, poetic, or speculative frameworks that resonate with its vast historical and emotional terrain.

ROMA MITICA hopes to show the vast differences as well as similarities of the Sea and its sea-faring peoples, who live around the hem of the vast cloak of water that mothers us all.

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:

• The Mediterranean Sea as cradle of civilisation and site of exchange

• The legends of the Sea: the hero epics, the love poetry, the tall tales and dastardly deeds

• The saviours of the Seas: dolphins rescuing the drowning & St Nicholas patron of sailors

• The curses of the Seas: the Old Man of the Sea, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis

• Seafaring superstitions

• ‘A woman in every port’

• Sailor tattoos

• Seafood

• The fish, flora and fauna, sun, moon and stars reflected in this vast mirror

• Jellyfish and Octopus: alien species

• Ecological fragility, pollution and excessive tourism

• Coral, seaweed and marine vegetable degradation

• Sailing and boats, the life of the sailor

• Shipbuilding, technology

• The human life, traditions, food, feasts fasts and religious ceremonies that involve the Sea

• The dreams, loves and reverie that the Sea inspires

• The Divine: The blue, the blue, the blue that Yves Klein called God

• The Spiritual: Rimbaud wrote ‘Eternity. It is the Sea mingled with the Sun’

• The beauty, healing and the joy of the Mediterranean

• The glassy sea, the wine coloured sea, the sudden storm, the dangerous crossing

• Navigating by the pleiad stars

• Winter at the empty tourist spots, seasonal intruders, seasonal jobs

• Shipwreck, piracy, kidnapping and sea battles

• Marine archaeology, Atlantis, sunken treasures

• Migration, displacement, and maritime borders

• Commerce, Trade Routes, Empire, and Naval Power

• Memory, loss, mourning and the sea as a watery grave

• The Mediterranean as metaphor: womb, threshold, archive, infinity, divinity, life, love, passion and death

Direct depictions of the Mediterranean Sea are welcome but not required. Contemporary, political, ecological, poetic, 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.