Lonely Stone Press (founded in 2023) invites submissions for the third volume of The Unfold Project, an annual project dedicated to showcasing the work of recent graduates across the UK. This year’s theme is Traces — what remains, what lingers, what is left behind.

A trace might be a footprint, a gesture, a voice, a memory, or an image caught in passing. It can be faint or bold, accidental or deliberate.

We are interested in works that explore presence and absence, the fragile ways we record and remember, and the subtle marks that connect past and present.

Submissions may take the form of:

Photography (single images or series)

Text (short prose, essays, or poetry — max. 1000 words)

Film stills (single stills or curated sequences)

Together, these works will gather into a collective publication.

Submission Guidelines

Who can apply: Graduates from UK art schools and universities (2022–2025).

Media accepted: Photography, text, film stills.

Specifications:

-  Images: High-quality images no larger than 4MB. Should you be successful, we will ask you for high-resolution JPEG or TIFF (300dpi, minimum 2000px on the shortest side).

- Text: Word or PDF (max. 1000 words).

- Film stills: submitted as image files (JPEG/TIFF). Please indicate if they are part of a sequence.

Number of works: Up to 4 pieces (images or texts) per applicant. Please label the work with your name and title of the piece.

Include:

-  Your name and contact details

-  A short artist statement (max. 150 words)

-   Year, course title, and place of graduation

Publication

Selected works will be published in The Unfold Project Vol. 3 by Lonely Stone Press in the spring of 2026.

There is a fee of £5 per submission.

Contributors will receive a discounted copy of the publication, professional exposure across our platforms (10k+ monthly viewers), and be part of an online collective launch event.

About us

Lonely Stone Press is a platform for sound, photography, and writing. We invite artists to respond to themes of landscape, language, and environment — with a focus on geology, ecology, and the realities of climate breakdown. Our work seeks to hold space for creative resistance and new ways of seeing in a time of crisis.

We are finding new readers and connections — with 10.2K monthly views and a recent feature in the Centre for Book Arts online publication.