10/20/2026
notshockboxx.com/open-call/bad-guests/
Deadline to apply: November 14, 2026
Come as you are. Make it awkward.
There’s one at every gathering. The guest who asks the wrong question. Wears the wrong thing. Brings someone unexpected. Says what everyone else has been carefully avoiding.
Not Shockboxx invites artists to submit work for Bad Guests, an online group exhibition exploring belonging, bad behavior, and the unwritten rules of gathering.
As the season of obligatory togetherness approaches, we’re making room for the outsiders, the oversharers, the chosen family, and the people who have stopped making themselves smaller to keep everyone comfortable. We’re interested in what happens around the table, beneath the pleasantries, and just outside the invitation list.
Show us domestic tension, delicious excess, social rituals gone sideways, or the quiet rebellion of taking up space. Think awkward portraits, unruly still lifes, surreal dinner parties, family mythology, q***r joy, and beautifully uncomfortable encounters. Abstract interpretations are equally welcome: friction, intrusion, imbalance, or something that simply refuses to behave.
Work can be funny, tender, confrontational, unsettling, or several of those things at once. A literal holiday connection is welcome but isn’t required.
Who gets a seat? Who gets left out? And who flips the table?
