Artist Meets Archive 2026/2027

Artists are invited to engage with diverse Cologne-based photographic collections during a one-month residency in Summer 2026, offering a €4,500 fee plus travel/accommodation and a €5,000 exhibition budget for a showcase in 2027.

Overview

Together with Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln, Archiv der Fotowerkstätte Schmölz, Greven Archiv Digital as well as FrauenMediaTurm Köln and LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn, the International Photoszene Köln invites artists to delve into diverse photographic holdings, stories, and discourses, and to develop their own explorations and projects.

The new edition of Artist Meets Archive once again brings together a wide range of different photographic archives and collections, highlighting the complexity and versatility of photography: as a medium of reportage or feminist activism, documenting urban history and spatial change, or interpreting movement and dance (history). It combines extensive press image archives with collections and estates of significant photographers, opens up diverse institutional perspectives on photography, and places a particular focus on the (image) archive at the intersection of analogue and digital organization and use.

The residencies at the Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln (German Dance Archive Cologne), Greven Archiv Digital, and LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn & FrauenMediaTurm Cologne are open to international applicants. The residency at the Archiv der Fotowerkstätte Köln is open to artists who were born in the Netherlands, reside in the Netherlands, or hold Dutch citizenship.

Practical Info

The call is open to all professional artists, photographers, and artist collectives who are of legal age. It is primarily aimed at artists whose work addresses questions related to photography and the archive. Applicants should be willing to work temporarily in Cologne.

Submissions must include a CV, a letter of motivation explaining the interest in the chosen archive/collection and its holdings (Alternatively, the motivation may be submitted as an audio file), and a portfolio of previous works and/or an informative website.

The program offers an artist fee of €4,500, divided into €1,500 for the residency stay, €1,500 for the project development, and €1,500 for the realization of the exhibition. The fee for the artist collective at the Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln (German Dance Archive Cologne) amounts to 3 × €3,000. Access to the archive/collection or selected parts of it is provided by the respective institution. In addition, travel and accommodation costs for the residency stay, exhibition installation, and opening weekend are covered. Selected artists will also join an exhibition as part of the Photoszene Festival 2027. The basic funding for the exhibition in the amount of €5,000.

The residency stays will take place in the summer of 2026, concentrated into a one-month period. The exact timing will be coordinated with the institutions and Internationale Photoszene Köln, who will oversee the residency schedule. The stays are intended to last up to one continuous month but may, depending on personal or logistical circumstances, also be divided into several shorter visits to the archives/collections. Follow-up research and additional visits may take place beyond this period depending on the budget. During the residency, artists will receive conceptual support from the respective archive/collection, which also provides access to the holdings. Internationale Photoszene Köln organizes travel and accommodation, facilitates networking among participants through joint excursions and archive/exhibition visits, and arranges a public accompanying program (e.g., artist talks).

The exhibitions will be presented as part of the Photoszene Festival starting in May 2027. The exhibition projects will be shown at the respective archives/collections and/or associated venues and will be on view for at least four weeks.

The juries consist of two representatives of the respective archive/collection, two representatives of Internationale Photoszene Köln (Heide Häusler, Artistic Director & Managing Director, and Daria Bona, Program Director Artist Meets Archive), as well as one external expert. In early March 2026, the selected artists for Artist Meets Archive #5 will be announced.

About International Photoszene Köln

The International Photoszene Köln was founded in 1984 as an initiative between the Cultural Office of the City of Cologne and the German Society for Photography (DGPh) in continuation of the picture shows organised by L. Fritz Gruber. The primary goal was to organise the festival "Internationale Photoszene Kön", which always took place parallel to the major world photography fair - photokina - throughout the city and showcased the photographic holdings of Cologne's cultural scene - from museums and galleries to independent art spaces and libraries. In 2018, photokina, founded in 1950, took place for the last time. Since 2019, the festival of the photographic scene has returned to a biennial rotation. Since its first edition in 1984, the participatory festival has established itself in the city and today shows up to 100 exhibitions that attracted 125,000 visitors in 2023.