OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
LEIDA: ISSUE No. 8 – COPY WORK
The 2026 spring issue of the design journal Leida will focus on describing, defining and conceptualising copies, copy work and copy culture. The open call for this edition invites proposals for essays, interviews and discussions, analyses of design processes and case studies, design criticism, and other written and visual forms.
While the contradictions of design history may still be acceptable – along with designing a hopeful future we’ve also designed a past to escape from – then the relationship between the original and the copy seems far more implacable. While one is a unique ideal to be aspired to, the other is considered an inferior reproduction. If the original belongs to design history, the copy is usually omitted from it. The copy mimics the original and not the other way around, even though no original is independent of what’s been designed beforehand. Focusing on copy work, issue 8 of Leida seeks to question copying as a process, while studying its multifarious and often tacit connections with other creative practices.
The copy further intensifies the polemics of design. On the one hand, it’s related to appropriation, forgery, and theft, standing in conflict with the principles of authorship that become especially explicit in the context of intellectual property. On the other hand, copying is not far removed from certain essentials of a designer’s practice, such as acquiring techniques, drawing inspiration from exemplars, or adhering to particular aesthetics or ethical principles. A copy can criticise the original, contribute to its preservation, or develop it further. Piracy makes the original accessible to those otherwise without access. How should the boundary between a “good” and “bad” copy be defined? Does the notion of authorship also apply to immaterial design practices? What is creative about copying?
If this topic piques your interest and you would like to contribute to the new issue of Leida, please send us a short summary of your submission proposal, which outlines the focus of the article and the questions you’d like to address.
Editor-in-chief: Taavi Hallimäe
Submission deadline: 19.01.2026
Notification of selected proposals: 01.02.2026
Publication date: May 2026
APPLICATION
Please send an abstract (max 500 words) and, if possible, 1–3 images to taavi.hallimae@artun.ee
Exhibition Als würden sie ein Ei auf meiner Stirn braten wollen, Oliver-Selim Boualam, Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg, 2023.
ABOUT LEIDA
The 7th issue of Leida, titled To the Exhibition! (guest edited by Sandra Nuut), explored questions related to design curation. Drawing on the history of design exhibitions, examining the influence of institutions on exhibition practices, and introducing a variety of curatorial approaches, the issue offered an overview of both historical and contemporary examples while outlining new directions for design curation. The issue invited us to reflect on the relationship between design and curation, as well as on the curatorial practices design requires today.
Leida is an online journal initiated by the Faculty of Design, Estonian Academy of Arts and is focused on publishing texts that describe, analyse and reflect upon the various facets of being human and non-human through the critical visual, material and processual aspects of design. Leida brings together both Estonian and foreign practitioners and theorists with a background in design, craft, architecture, visual arts or the fields in between. The journal provides a discussion platform that empowers a multiplicity of different media, disciplines and perspectives in order to ensure a level of criticality and adequacy to understand the modern person, their experience and the surrounding environment.