Call Out — Photo Essays & Photography: AAPI Food, Memory, and Ritual

Not So Sweet — A NAYA Magazine Zine Project

NAYA Magazine is seeking photo essays and photography collections for the upcoming zine, Not So Sweet. This special issue will explore the depth, complexities, power, histories, rituals and contemporary glimpses of AAPI food cultures, where meals become archives of migration, ritual, and relation.

They invite submissions that look closely at the acts of cooking, eating, gathering, and remembering. From family kitchens to night markets, from ancestral rituals to contemporary fusions, NAYA are interested in work that documents the textures, traditions, and tensions within Asian and Asian diasporic food worlds.

About NAYA Magazine

NAYA is an independent, AAPI-focused platform for arts, culture, and journalism. NAYA believes in storytelling that is layered, communal, and alive — narratives that challenge stereotypes and hold space for multiplicity.

Requirements

Naya welcomes photography that is:

Intimate: meals at home, inherited recipes, everyday rituals.
Documentary: street food, local markets, communal gatherings.
Critical: exploring labour, migration, class, or cultural appropriation through food.
Experimental: visual storytelling that pushes the form of the photo essay.

Application Instructions

Submission Details

Format: Photo essay (6–15 images) with an accompanying written statement (300–500 words) or photography collection (curated images, 8–20, with captions).

Eligibility: Open to AAPI photographers, photojournalists, artists, and community documentarians globally.

How to Submit:

Send a portfolio or completed work to (nicolenayamagazine@gmail.com) and (nicolengo44@gmail.com) with “Not So Sweet: Photo Submission” in the subject line.