UNSTAGED Journal — Issue 02: Eerie

UNSTAGED is an independent photography journal dedicated to lens-based work that engages with comforting and discomforting authenticity. Each issue is shaped by a different guest curator. Issue 02 is themed Eerie and guest curated by Karla Guerrero — a Mexico City-based photographer, curator, and editor active in the contemporary photography scene.

The brief reads the eerie as quiet disturbance — a poetics of phantasmagoria where images silently evoke meaning. The fleeting suggestion that something unnameable lingers just beneath what we think we see. Something quietly disturbing rather than frightening or grotesque.

Submission terms: 5–10 photographs as JPG files (long edge 2000px), with an artist statement and bio. The submission process is unusual: applicants upload work to a Google Drive folder and send the link to reach@arek-ratai.com. Files must be named Name_Series_Title_01.

Selection results in inclusion in a free print publication. Application is free, eligibility is open globally. The Issue 02 deadline was April 20, 2026.