OPEN CALL. DEATH AND MUSIC | Unknown Person x NAUND

Open call of the self-publishing house Unknown Person and the art space NAUND

The Unknown Person publishing house announces the XI open call for artists from all over the world to create illustrations for our new book by writer Roma Murashov, Death & Music, to be published in German and English. The book project will be presented as a one-day exhibition featuring an audiovisual performance and a reading session for the first time in German at Atelier Naund in Leipzig, followed by presentations in other cities.

Deadline: Oсtober 21, 2026 11:59 PM

Location: NAUND, Leipzig, Germany

Exhibition Time: November 28, 2026

Book Format: Chronicle of a Disappearing Era

Genre: Autofiction, Documentary Prose, Literary Memoir
With elements of Horror, Gothic and the Supernatural

⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: DEATH, VIOLENCE & DISTURBING IMAGERY

Death & Music

Death & Music is a collection of stories about people living in the Russian Far East in the 1990s and 2000s.

An opera singer who dies in an ordinary apartment building. An outsider musician lost somewhere in the taiga. An uncle with a hockey past and problems with alcohol. A seriously ill grandfather. Through their lives, the author tells the story of his own coming of age in a provincial town, where music was part of everyday life — and a way of surviving things that were difficult to escape.

In these stories, music and death somehow always seem to find themselves side by side. At times, it feels as though there is a connection between them — inexplicable, almost mystical. Music plays where someone disappears, falls ill, breaks down, or dies. And the further the author travels back into the past, the harder it becomes to see this as a coincidence.

There is black humour, strange stories, illness, loss, and music — as a part of life, and as its dark companion.

We want these stories to become part of something collective — and we would love to invite our readers, artists, and friends to become part of the book. Think of it as a small experiment in independent publishing storytelling. We have prepared excerpts from the book and visual materials to give you a starting point. From there, you are free to take the stories wherever your imagination leads you.

Who can participate?

Artists and writers over 18 years old from any country are welcome to apply. We have no gender restrictions, and we do not take into account your fame, exhibition experience, or existing publications. You can submit your work anonymously if you wish.

Work format

BLACK & WHITE illustrations

Use a .jpg file, resolution 300 dpi, size A5 or A4 (your choice: horizontal or vertical). We accept work in digital format only (scan, photograph or digital image).

WARNING

A maximum of 3 work* (illustration/ illustration series) per participant in the open call will be accepted for consideration

⚠️WE DO NOT ACCEPT WORKS THAT DEMEAN HUMAN DIGNITY, OR INCITE HATRED CONTENT. WE DO NOT ACCEPT WORKS THAT DEMEAN HUMAN DIGNITY, OR INCITE HATRED

> >We have prepared photographs and images related to the four main characters of the book, as well as excerpts from the book that may help you create your illustrations. We also welcome art you may have created previously that fit the themes and materials presented in the book.

> >Please read the concept, format, and excerpts carefully before submitting your work to this independent project, which has limited financial and human resources.

Swipe through the slides -->

You can also click on every slide to expand it and read the book excerpts in English

Draft versions of the complete book are available in both German at this link and Russian at this link, and you are welcome to read them free of charge. All rights are protected by copyright.

Valentina

***
Valentina often rehearsed in her apartment. Her voice instantly carried through all nine floors of our nine-story panel-block apartment building. Everything inside me trembled whenever she began to sing “The Phantom of the Opera.” Valentina was the first person in Russia to dare to perform this incredibly difficult part.

***
She had a little dog. Sometimes I would watch from the window as she walked it and smoked. Whenever Valentina sang, the dog couldn’t help itself and would start barking along with her, in time with her singing.
The neighbors would step out onto their balconies and, holding their breath, listen to these free concerts. The nighttime shows didn’t always end beautifully. Sometimes, after the opera, fighting and shouting would break out in the apartment. Sometimes we heard snippets of Valentina’s private life. Then there would be a brief pause of silence.

***
After the fire had finally been put out, my father was called in to identify the actress’s body. It was impossible to breathe in the room. Everything was completely black. In the middle stood a rusty metal bucket. Inside it were fragments of Valentina. A piece of a leg, a piece of a skull, some other bones.

Grandpa

***
The day of the funeral came. Grandpa was sleeping deeply. There was only peace on his face now, no more of the pain he had suffered through during the last few months.

When the coffin had already been lowered into the grave, everyone was asked to take a handful of earth and throw it in.

Then they buried Grandpa. A gravestone with his photograph was placed on top.

All the way back from the cemetery, I kept thinking about how he would lie there now, what stages of decomposition his body would go through, how we would never see his face again, how worms would eat him once the ground began to thaw. How I would never talk to him again.

I wanted to discuss all of this with at least one of the adults. But the adults had no time for me.

Then there was the funeral meal. The relatives gathered in a canteen not far from the house of my grandmother Lena, my mother’s mother.

I will always remember the strangest combination I had ever seen: people eating and crying at the same time.

And there was one more dish — kutia. A mixture of rice, honey, and raisins. I was embarrassed to admit back then that I really liked it, and that I would have eaten it in ordinary life too, not only in honour of someone’s death.
My sister and I were taken away from the funeral meal early and brought to my mother’s mother.

My father came a few hours later. He was very drunk. His eyes were empty.

He took an audio cassette of the music band Mumiy Troll, with the single “Nevesta?” (“Lucky Bride?”), out of his pocket. It was from their new album, which was supposed to come out the following month.

“They’ve got a new song out,” he whispered, and went to bed.

Kolya

***
A few years later, I met Kolya in person when our band went to his rehearsal space for the first time. His studio had the same name as Kolya’s project — Orkestrovaya Yama, or simply OY Records.

It was a half-collapsed wooden house with a stove by the Amur River, in the Daldisel district. Living there alongside Kolya were a big shaggy dog named Potap, a black cat named Seryoga — and some strange creative characters.

***
One day, Kolya built a raft out of several hundred plastic beer bottles and planned to float down the river on it, along with his concert, to the city Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

He took his instruments and some food and set off. Not far from the shore, the raft fell apart and sank. The concert had to be cancelled.

***
They couldn’t find Kolya in the immediate aftermath either.

One very popular version was that Kolya had found a forester’s cabin in the woods and stayed there. According to another version, a bear had eaten him.

While searching the area, Kolya’s relatives came across some homeless people. One of them was wearing Kolya’s boots. By the riverbank, they found the remains of a fire with his half-burned clothes. Some people claimed that the relatives had also found the dog and the bicycle.

The homeless people told the police that they had seen a man who looked like Kolya and had invited him to join their group. But he didn’t go with them and continued on his way. They never saw him again.

Many people are convinced that the homeless people might have gotten Kolya drunk, killed him, and eaten him.

Uncle

***
My uncle grew taller and stronger. Unexpectedly for everyone, he became obsessed with ice hockey. He played alongside Mogilny. With enviable regularity, my uncle suffered fractures and other injuries, and soon brought his hockey career to an end. Mogilny went on to become an NHL star.

***
My uncle drank vodka more and more often. For any reason or no reason at all. One day at work, something heavy fell from a crane onto his head and fractured his skull. He spent a long time in the hospital. They put a metal plate in his head. The doctors told him he was not allowed to drink.

Despite the doctors’ orders, my uncle kept drinking. One day, he got drunk at work and lay down in the grass. His boss walked past and told him to get back to work.

“Fuck you!” my uncle replied.

He was fired that same day.

***
According to eyewitnesses, my uncle was drunk when he went to the electrical panel.

According to another version, someone had told him that the electrical room had been switched off, when in fact it was still live.

My uncle put his hand inside. It was instantly burned to the bone, while he himself, after receiving a massive electric shock, fell to the floor, smoking.

Text Author & Music Programme Curator: Roma Murashov
Text Editor: Anna Poberezhnaia, Nuria Rojas Castañeda, Meryem Freitas do Nascimento
Proofreader: Alicio Wagner, Domenic

Project Curator: Anna Dial

Roman Murashov is a writer, musician, curator, and co-founder of the independent cultural project Unknown Person and the nomadic exhibition space Kafedra. Born in the Russian Far East, he has lived in exile since 2022 and is now based and working in Germany. He has published numerous collaborative and personal zines and small-edition artists’ books, as well as his full-length book Ikra (The Caviar) in 2024. His literary practice is rooted in autofiction and draws on personal experience, travel, observations of cities and people, the body, fear, and everyday vulnerability.

We are always looking for support for our project. We want to continue contributing to the press development and art culture and helping independent authors and artists

SUPPORT US

As our project is non-commercial and our team is very small, there may be occasional minor errors on the website, as we are not native speakers. If you notice any mistakes or inaccuracies and would like to help us correct them, you are very welcome to contact us by email unknownperson.art@gmail.com

Results of open call

Results of the open call will be announced in Oсtober, 2026.

BELOW YOU WILL FIND AN APPLICATION FORM FOR PARTICIPATION. GOOD LUCK!

SUBMIT YOUR ART