Spilt Milk

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Cut, Torn & Mended

Open Call for World Collage Day 2023 Online Exhibition & Zine



We’re excited to announce a new open call for an online exhibition and publication to be launched as part of World Collage Day 2023 (Saturday 13th May).

The aim of the exhibition is to create an accessible opportunity for our members to show their work, and to highlight the diverse ways in which collage is used in artist mothers’ practices. We are interested in exploring how the use of collage appears at different stages in the creative process and how it allows us to transform the visual information surrounding us to make new meanings. How has collage allowed artists with caring responsibilities to continue their practices at times where space and resources may be limited? How does the act of collaging help us to make sense of the world, communicate different experiences, understand our emotions and improve our mental health? What can we learn through the process of cutting, tearing, and mending?


There is no set theme for this exhibition; work can explore any subject. The joy of the exhibition is that collage is so open to interpretation and can include a number of different methods: traditional cut and paste techniques, photomontage, mixed media, appliqué, digital works etc. The only requirement is that submitted work must include at least two elements that are ‘collaged’ together somehow (cut, glued, stuck, stitched, torn, spliced, ripped, sewn, mended etc). 

Submission Guidelines:

  1. You must be a member of Spilt Milk to submit work. New members are welcome to join us before the deadline. Membership is open to any artist who identifies as a mother: sign up here.

  2. There is no theme but work submitted must be a collage. 

  3. You can submit up to 3 works for consideration.

  4. Submission is free for professional members.

  5. Community members are asked to contribute a small admin fee.

  6. Work can be for sale up to a maximum price of £400.

  7. Spilt Milk will take a 30% commission on sales.

  8. All submissions will be considered to feature in the accompanying zine. In order to be considered please ensure your images are high resolution (at least 1748 x 2480 pixels and 300 dpi).


Application Process:

In order to submit work to this open call, you are required to be a member of Spilt Milk (either a professional member or a community member). You will be asked for your membership number when you apply - this can be found at the top of your monthly member newsletters. If you are not yet a member, or your membership has lapsed you are welcome to sign up before the submission deadline in order to submit. More information about our membership network and how to join can be found here.

Professional Members:

  1. Please fill out the following application form:

Community Members:

1. Please pay the submission fee of £8 (Spilt Milk is an artist run, not-for-profit organisation. We don’t receive any regular funding, therefore any fees we charge allows us to continue to provide exhibition opportunities for our artist community).

2. Please fill out the community member application form here.

All submissions are due by Friday March 31st at 5pm GMT.

Artists will be notified by April 20th and the online exhibition & pre-orders for the zine will be launched on Saturday 13th May.

If you have any issues with the application process please get in touch as soon as possible and we will help in any way we can.


T & C’s

By submitting an application you are agreeing that Spilt Milk may publish images of your work on our website, across social media platforms, print your image in our publication and use your images to promote the exhibition in any other way we deem appropriate. Artists work will be credited in full wherever images are published and will retain full artistic copyright to their work.