DongGang International Photo Festival 2026 Open Call

One selected artist will have a solo exhibition at DIPF (production/printing, framing or related presentation material will be provided) and they are eligible for travel and accommodation to attend the opening.

Overview

The 24th DongGang International Photo Festival will be held this year in Yeongwol, Korea. The theme of this edition is 'The Silence That Shapes', and it interrogates the very terms by which human beings have come to understand the world.

For centuries, we have read nature through a distinctly human lens, projecting onto it our fears and expectations, our lacks and longings. Yet the question remains: can we ever truly understand nature on its own terms? Mountains and oceans, earth and light, transform and endure according to their own order. Meaning, it seems, has always been our imposition; nature neither mirrors our emotions nor bends to resemble us.

A landscape is a cross-section of the world. It is always the human observer who speaks of meaning, while nature reveals itself in silence. The world before human interpretation—the landscape prior to narrative and imposed meaning—exists as a kind of archetype, a blank canvas awaiting inscription. The consolations and anxieties, the sense of the sublime and the weight of expectation that we project onto landscapes are, ultimately, reflections. They reveal how we wish to read and inhabit the world, rather than the world itself.

So what, then, are we truly seeing—and what are we adding?

Nature does not ask us for conclusions or certainty, but for inquiry and reflection. No one holds the full truth; yet through sustained questioning, we may move closer to understanding. How, then, will we interpret the landscape before us? By examining our own ways of seeing, we may begin to perceive the distance between how we experience the world—and what the world is in itself.

Practical Info

Both individuals and collectives are welcome to apply; individuals should submit between 8-12 photographs from a particular series or body of work. Between 15-20 artists will be selected, including an ‘Artist of the Year’.

The prize recipient will benefit from a year-long exhibition that includes exposure at the DIPF Festival - inclusion in an art magazine, any related press (long-term festival representation and promotion on official website, publications, catalog that is seen by a substantial number of visual arts professionals and the media), where the works will be viewed by an international panel of influential experts in the field of photography.

About DIPF

The DongGang International Photo Festival (DIPF) is one of South Korea's premier contemporary photography events, held annually in Yeongwol, Gangwon Province. Launched in 2002, the festival showcases global photography trends alongside the prestigious DongGang Photography Award, drawing artists and tourists to the picturesque "City of Photography"