Deepest Rhythms

Call for Art: Deepest Rhythms

after Audre Lorde

Curator: Corinne Pompéy

Application Deadline: Sunday, August 30, 2026, 11:59pm CST

This work gathers at the midpoint between the fall equinox and the winter solstice, where the year tips into its dark half. It is a threshold season, and the body knows it before the mind does. The pull toward slowness and the disappearing of the light. The instruction to fold inward as the ground begins its own long rest.

To pause here is not idleness. It is a refusal. The world we inhabit demands constant motion and vigilance, and to stop is to say no to that. In this season, the choice to slow becomes an act of care. It is also defiance.

As the warmth thins and light withdraws, the self turns to interior work. This is the kind of knowledge only the dark makes possible. The western hemisphere, and the body alongside it, prepares for rest, the implied question is what should be carried forward and what should be laid down? The withdrawal of light is not where the membrane between worlds grows thin. The shadows draw near, and we make room for them. We honor the ones who created our bodies with their own erotic power. We honor the dead and respect their navigation of the same rhythm of humanity we are now pursuing. We keep vigil to remember the accumulated knowing our own bodies fight to retain.

Photography mimics this register of motion and rest, of the porous body and the thinning veil. It respects the cyclical. The natural rhythm of withdrawal and return. It harkens, as Lorde wrote, to the body’s deepest rhythms. To slow, to descend, to honor the dead, to let the body rest. They are one act to tend the fire of our fearless selves.

This call is for photography that engages with liminality and seasonal transition; images exploring rest, descent, ancestry, grief/vigil, or the body’s relationship to seasonal rhythm. Landscape, portraiture, and still life photographs are all welcome as long as the work speaks to this in-between, threshold energy.

 

Key Dates

Deadline for Submission of Applications: Sunday, August 30, 2026, 11:59pm CST

Notification of Acceptance: Will go out by email by Tuesday, September 15, 2026

Delivery of work to ARC: Thursday & Friday, September 24–25, 2–6pm; Saturday, September 26, 12–4pm

Installation: Sunday, September 27

Opening Reception: Friday, October 2, 5:00–8:00pm

Exhibition dates: October 2–25, 2026

Gallery hours: Thurs–Fri 2–6pm, Sat–Sun 12–4pm

Pick-Up Work at Gallery: Sunday, October 25, 2:30–4pm

Shipped Work Return Date: Week of October 27

*Pre-Paid FedEx or UPS return label is required

*Do not use the U.S. Postal Service

About the Juror: Corinne Pompéy

Corinne Pompéy is a fine art photographer based in Chicago, IL. She holds a Bachelor of Art in Photography from Columbia College Chicago, where she co-founded and co-curated the For Women, by Women Art Gallery. Her work explores themes of identity, feminist issues, and body image, with a particular focus on the intersectionality of womanhood and the Black experience. She also examines the Black experience through the relationships she’s cultivated in her life, using them as a method of self-reflection, as seen in her recent series A Soft Place to Land (2025). Through her photography and self-portraiture, Pompéy captures moments of transition and explores the relationship with herself and her own body, using visual storytelling to engage with broader social, cultural, and personal narratives. Pompéy’s work has been exhibited at spaces including EXPO Chicago (11th Edition), The Museum of Science and Industry, Bridgeport Art Center, and Woman Made Gallery.

She is currently developing a new self-portraiture series exploring disappearance and visibility as a Black woman.

Visit Corinne @ https://corinne-pompey.format.com/

Opening Reception, Friday, October 2nd, 5:00-8:00pm

Exhibition dates: October 2-25, 2026

Gallery hours: Thurs – Fri 2-6pm, Sat – Sun 12-4 pm