DEADLINE TO SUBMIT WORKS: 7/1/2024
Click HERE if you'd like to recieve emailed reminders to participate in this event.
Cheeseheads, Swifties, Beatlemaniacs, Trekkies, Whovians, Potterheads, Beyhive, the Cenation, ARMY. People are fans of all sorts of things. But what makes someone a fan? Is there a difference between enjoying something and being a fan of that thing?
Creators from any and all fandoms (popular media, music, celebrities, sports, products, and more!) are invited to submit any and all kinds of fanworks (fanfiction, fan art, pictures of cosplay and collections, podcasts, short skits, gifs, gif fics, memes, music, and any other fanworks you can imagine) to be a part of Affirmation/Transformation: Fandom Created—an art exhibition at Marquette University’s Haggerty Museum of Art. This exhibition will be open to the public August 23rd through December 22nd, 2024, at the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and will feature pieces from the Haggerty's permanent collection. Additionally, fanworks created for this exhibition will be on display digitally in the gallery as well as online.
Affirmation/Transformation considers “creation” as the transition point between casual enjoyment and fandom. Fans are not passive; fans create. Using pieces from the Haggerty Museum of Art’s permanent collection, as well as submitted fanworks inspired by those pieces, Affirmation/Transformation looks at the types of things that fans are inspired to create and asks the viewer whether these fan creations are affirmational or transformational—that is, do they affirm the fan object as it is, or transform it into something new? Do fan creations uphold the canon of the original content, or do they take only what they need and leave the rest behind? Is it possible that all fan creations hold both at the same time?
You are invited to use one the Haggerty pieces provided above as inspiration in the creation of affirmational and transformational works for any and all fandoms. Click on each image to see the complete work, as well as artist information and information on how the piece will be used to talk about a component of fandom. In addition to the image itself, you may use the information provided as inspiration in your fanwork if you wish to do so, but it is not a requirement (think of it as extra credit!). You can also view the inspirational pieces by theme by clicking on the links below.
To download a PDF version of the pieces and their themes, click HERE.
Please limit yourself to one inspirational piece from the Haggerty collection per fanwork created. You are welcome to create multiple works if you are inspired by more than one piece.
This exhibition serves as a foundational component for the dissertation of Kate Rose, English Literature PhD Candidate at Marquette University (and creator of fanworks herself—mainly of the fanfiction variety). Submitted works will be analyzed as a component of that dissertation. Participants will also have the opportunity to engage in ethnographic research; however, agreeing to take part in this research is completely optional and not required for participation in the show.
Due to university codes of conduct, and due to the public display of materials, sexually explicit works will not be able to be displayed in this show, but are still welcomed for research purposes. In addition to submission to this project and possible publication in EPublications@Marquette, creators of fanworks are welcome to share and post their works as desired. If posting to social media, please link to this post in order to expand awareness of the show. If works are uploaded to AO3, please also add them to the collection Affirmation/Transformation on Archive of Our Own (https://archiveofourown.org/collections/AffirmationTransformationShow). Reach out to Kate Rose at affirmationtransformationshow@gmail.com with any questions.
Completed works can be submitted at https://forms.gle/8aN5GGnMLvDa4cAZ8, or by clicking on “Submit your work here” in the right side panel of this page.
**Submission through this form requires a Google account. If you do not have a Google account, and do not wish to create one, please contact Kate Rose at affirmationtransformationshow@gmail.com for alternative submission options.
By submitting your work, you give Marquette University Raynor Memorial Libraries non-exclusive permission to make a copy of your work electronically accessible in Marquette’s institutional repository, e-Publications@Marquette [http://epublications.marquette.edu] and at the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This means your work will be available in perpetuity online.
You further grant Marquette University Raynor Memorial Libraries the non-exclusive right to convert your item to any medium or format without changing the content for the purpose of making the item electronically accessible in perpetuity.