The Future Movement project seeks new discussion and new work of an emotional intensity that reimagines past, present and projected future into something new, and then something newer.

Future Movement 2025 book project launches under the Artistic Directions of Kaye Mahoney. Poetry Sydney in collaboration withThai born Sydney based artist Kaye Mahoney are open for submissions for experimental interactive literature, poetry, hybrid and digital media compositions that correspond to this year’s Future Movement theme.

Theme: Kaye Mahoney’s 100 Telegrams (2020)

As with telegrams used in the 20th century, Mahoney’s “2020 Telegram” were messages to be urgently delivered and received. They were often confronting. The process of reception was crucial. They are completed by the recipient who is compelled to “read” the dissonance between image and words – words that may be couched in irony, humour, sarcasm, wordplay, rhetoric or outright naming calling. Some may find parallels between the imagery and the critical implications of the text. Others may temperamentally respond, as if to a call to action. Yet, such associations may be co-incidental. For Mahoney, 2020 Telegrams reflect the struggle to rationalise how comfort, beauty and privilege can co-exist alongside inequality, destruction, corruption, exploitation and the collective trauma of a world in environmental crisis.

The Telegrams have been separated into three categories: PERSON / EARTH / THING; which operate as cues for poets and artists to correspond to. Kaye Mahoney Telegrams can be read online courtesy of the artist.

The program launched at Since I Left You (SILY), on Tuesday, 29 July 2025. Artists and poets in attendance had the opportunity to select a Telegram from one of the three categories: PERSON / EARTH / THING.

About Kaye Mahoney

Kaye Mahoney is a Thai born Australian American conceptual artist. Her wide-ranging expressive tools include video, installations, painting, text, assemblage and music. Many of her works are conceived as platforms for experimentation and interaction or reflect the influence of 1960’s Fluxus movement. In her early years, after completing an MFA program at the New York Academy of Art, Mahoney trained in Italy and practiced as a muralist specializing in fresco. Mid-career, she was represented by Dillon Gallery in Chelsea New York and exhibited regularly in France and Italy. Since moving to Australia, Mahoney’s shows have included major solo exhibitions at the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, solo exhibitions in Sydney at Art Atrium and a show at Lesley Heller Gallery, New York. Mahoney maintains studios in Sydney and France and is represented by Art Atrium and Art Atrium 48.

Her work has been reviewed in Italy (Corriere di Sienna/ La Republica Delle Donne), United States (Miami/Newark Star Ledger), Australia (Canberra Times/ Art in Australia/ Midland Express/ Goulburn Post).
Kaye Mahoney, Writing on the Wall exhibition, Art Atrium [3 - 17 May 2025]. To find out more about the artist please visit: https://artatrium.com.au/48/kaye-mahoney
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Future Movement: lead life to the limit of what it can do (2024), marked the centennial of the origins of Surrealism with the publication of the Surrealist Manifesto in October 1924. This is the second project, the first was partnered with gaffa Gallery, and included a series of engagements: a panel discussion, workshop, street performances and a limited edition printed book.
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How to submit to Future movement: PERSON EARTH THING

Submissions for issue II—Poetry Sydney Book Project are open with Artistic Directions of Kaye Mahoney, Project Directions of Angela Stretch, Poetry Sydney and Editorial Directions of Les Wicks.

Submissions open: 29 July 2025
Submissions close: 31 August 2025
To be launched on: December at STUDIOW, Woolloomooloo [Date/Time TBC]

Theme: Correspondence to Telegrams (2020) by Kaye Mahoney in three categories: PERSON / EARTH / THING. A response to how comfort, beauty and privilege can co-exist alongside inequality, destruction, corruption, exploitation and the collective trauma of a world in environmental crisis.

OPTIONAL: Select a one of the three categories, pay sumission fee to receive a telegram as prompt via email.

Successful submissions: Notified 15 September 2025
Published and printed in a limited edition project book

Maximum length: 1 A4 page
Maximum entries: 3
Entry Fee: $20 successful submissions, the fee entitles you to a copy of the first limited edition book.
Payment through Humantix

Email submissions to: mail@poetrysydney.org

Subject field: 2025 Future movement: [category]

Submission Guidelines—General

1. All work must be previously unpublished.

2. Contributors retain copyright of their entries, however, agree that Poetry Sydney is granted the right to publish the successful entries on their website for the purpose of promoting the Future movement Book Project.

3. Poetry Sydney will always credit the author of the work when reproducing the work and will not make any changes to the work without first seeking the prior written consent of the author.

4. It is entirely your responsibility to ensure that all text, sound and music on your submission is your original work or cleared with the author/composer.

5. You must include all appropriate attributions for the work submitted.

ps. Thanks you for your submission, participation and Future movement ~

Stay in touch with the project at poetrysydney.org
@poetrysydney
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