We invite applications from queer and trans spoken word artists, poets, storytellers, and performers from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the United Kingdom. For this edition, we will select 4–5 spoken word artists.

We are also looking for 1 queer sound artist from South Asia or Southeast Asia, whose practice engages with text, voice, literature, or narrative forms, and who is interested in collaborating with poets in a live performance context.

As the programme includes a residency and public performances in Mumbai, applicants must be able to travel to India. Selected participants will be responsible for securing their own visas.

We welcome artists who:

• Are emerging or mid-career, with a strong commitment to their creative practice
• Have an established practice in writing, performance, or sound
• Are interested in collaborative and interdisciplinary creation, and open to working beyond solo practice, including co-writing, experimenting with form, and collective decision-making
• Engage with themes of identity, language, community, and queer experience
• Are open to working across cultures, languages, and artistic practices
• Approach their work, and that of others, with care and sensitivity
• Can reflect on how their practice connects to community or lived context
• Are comfortable working in English, as the programme will be conducted in English and the primary language of writing and performance will be English. We welcome artists who bring multilingual sensibilities into their work.
• Are based in, from, and nationals in one of the eligible regions listed above
• Come from, or are shaped by, backgrounds underrepresented within cultural and publishing spaces (strongly encouraged)