Open Call
FASHIONCLASH Festival 2026
New Fashion Narratives:
Fleshy, slimy, wobbly
We are looking for works that don't fit neatly. Works that leak, mutate, and resist easy categorisation. If your practice slips between forms, refuses fixed labels, or operates in the margins, this call is for you! FASHIONCLASH invites you to become part of New Fashion Narratives: Fleshy, slimy, wobbly as part of FASHIONCLASH Festival 2026.
Four independent fashion practitioners, Karmen Samson, Welmoed Bosch, Jamal Nxedlana, and Agatha Prieto Jeanty, were invited by FASHIONCLASH to co-create the concept for this year’s exhibition during a Residency Week in April 2026. With ‘Fleshy, slimy, wobbly’ the curators aim to bring together works that don’t fit neatly, works that leak, mutate and resist easy categorisation, that move between forms, refuse fixed categorisation, and slip through the cracks of dominant systems.
AI-generated image
In both 2023 and 2024, a short documentary was created to document the New Fashion Narratives Residency & Exhibition, including experiences from participants.
Curatorial concept: Fleshy, slimy, wobbly
Making is a slippery process. And yet, the dominant systems of the fashion industry largely determine which works come into being and which are considered legitimate. But what if we learn to discern the shapeshifting practices, those that move between forms and refuse fixed categorisation. What is the fleshiness, sliminess and wobbliness slipping through the cracks?
Labouring under the pressures of capitalism, fashion becomes a prescriptive regime. It dictates certain modes of making and being while excluding others. That which cannot be captured within stable structures, becomes impossible to read. However, as a virtual and speculative phenomenon, fashion also has the capacity to disrupt these limits.
In our sterile public spaces, we turn our gaze from inconvenient human leakiness. But the slimy huddles in the margins. The fleshy malleability of humanness, mutating beyond meat and muscle to fabulate the otherwise, forms a magnificent grotesque of the wobbly.
New Fashion Narratives 2025 Photos: Laura Knipsael
What we are looking for
We are looking for works that don't fit neatly. Works that leak, mutate, and resist easy categorisation. If your practice slips between forms, refuses fixed labels, or operates in the margins, this call is for you!
With this open call, we invite you to display the residual, the glitches and the parts that resist neat framing. We are looking for works where the substance oozes from the seams.
Any kind of practice is welcome, relating to fashion in the broadest possible sense of the word. This includes, but is not limited to: design, performance, film, writing, sculpture, textiles, photography, jewelry, animation, sound, digital works, painting and anything beyond or in between. Works may emerge from theory, practice, lived experience, or their entanglements, and are not confined to a single mode of knowing, making or otherwise.
If it does not fit, it might be exactly what we are looking for.
Phases leading up to the exhibition
Phase 1: Kick-off & Pre-production (July - August 2026)
You join an online kick-off meeting together with all participants to outline the process. By the end of this phase, you will need to provide PR materials (images and texts)
Phase 2: Exhibition Preparation (September – November 2026)
During this period, you will be in contact with the Creative Producer regarding the exhibition preparations.
Phase 3: Presentation at FASHIONCLASH Festival 2026
The exhibition will be presented from Friday 13 November to Sunday 14 November 2026. You are present at the exhibition setup and dismantling.
Important Details
Please read the Terms & Conditions and the Privacy Policy carefully before you apply!
Participation in the New Fashion Narratives Exhibition is free of charge;
You will receive a participation fee between €100 and €300 ex. VAT, depending on the type and size of the work. You will receive the participation fee after FASHIONCLASH Festival 2025 has finished;
The participation fee remains the same whether you participate as an individual or as a collective (more than 1 person).
Important Dates
Deadline for applications: Sunday 28 June 2026, 23:59 (CET)
Online kick-off meeting: Week 28, Monday 6 July - Friday 10 July
Deadline for delivering PR information: Tuesday 1 September 2026, 23:59 (CET)
FASHIONCLASH Festival: Friday 13 November, Saturday 14 November, Sunday 15 November 2026
Checklist
Read the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy;
Note all Important dates, as mentioned above;
Submit your application!
Het aanmeldformulier is in het Engels. Als je het lastig vindt om het formulier in het Engels in te vullen, mag je dit ook in het Nederlands doen.
Questions?
Please get in touch via nfn@fashionclash.nl if you have any specific questions about the New Fashion Narratives Exhibition.
If you think that your work/ project does not fit within one of the Open Calls that are currently running for FASHIONCLASH Festival 2026, please feel free to reach out via festival@fashionclash.nl and tell us how you possibly would like to participate in FASHIONCLASH Festival 2026.