CO’s Digital Publishing is evolving into a dynamic platform anchored in the themes of our printed magazines, with fresh, research-driven content released every month. The features bridge theoretical ideas with concrete artistic practices, transforming complex concepts into compelling stories. Through commissioned pieces of writing, this series becomes a multifaceted space interrogating culture through the idiosyncratic lenses of different writers.
In 2026 Digital Publishing aims to question the nature–culture divide, exploring behavioural patterns of animals, plants, bacteria, (non)human bodies and objects and their material manifestations. How can we engage in a new way of reading ourselves and others?
This year we’re diving deep, with Underworld as the main theme. We invite our writers to find beauty and (re)generative power in the decaying, slimy and grotesque, in the things that have been relegated to the ‘underworld’ but which are immensely life-giving. We welcome a range of writing anchored in research and distinctive points of view, including short-format essays, articles and interviews.
Sub-themes:
• PERMEABLE BODY explores bodies (human or otherwise) as porous entities, with the ability to chemically and physically change in relation to their environment. Focusing on how information crosses spaces and membranes to transfer from one body to another, from outside to inside or vice versa, the permeable body is ultimately relational.
• THE GROTESQUE concerns itself with those parts of life that are dark, cavernous, decaying, and even disgusting. ‘The meaning of the grotesque is constituted by the norm which it contradicts’*: the purportedly harmonious, pure, clean and sacred. We ask our writers to do the same, and to find beauty in the transgressive, non-normative and distorted.
• ALCHEMY prompts us to think about fusion and transmutation. Instead of perceiving materials and ideas as whole and pure, alchemy explores what can come to life when borders are crossed, objects uncategorised and materials alloyed. To think alchemically is to ponder what can be invented when we combine elements across space, time, cultures, histories and species.
• SUBTERRANEAN LOGIC investigates knowledge that has been repressed by dominant structures—systems of thoughts that breed in the dark. Spotlighting the intuitive, irrational, occult and mythological, we focus on how these types of meaning-making manifest and survive in material and visual culture.
To submit, please send us a compelling pitch of no more than 300 words via [the application form here]. The selected writers will be compensated according to the Dutch Fair Practice Code.
The deadline for submitting your pitch is 8 December 2025!
We’re eager to amplify voices that echo beauty, intricacy, and depth. Whether you’re a seasoned scribe or a budding writer, if you have a tale that intertwines with jewellery’s shimmer, we want to hear it!
Current Obsession Team
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