FORMAT25 Open Call

FORMAT International Photography Festival is delighted to announce the festival theme Conflicted for the FORMAT25 Biennale and welcomes diverse and imaginative proposals from international photographers, curators, artists and collectives.

Overview

FORMAT International Photography Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary – marking a remarkable history, progress and ethos since its inception in 2004. The open call – to seek applications for exhibition as part of the 2025 Festival – is a crucial platform for the festival to be able to support artists, collectives and curators – from the local, to the national and international practitioner – to realise outstanding new projects of work. The 2025 Festival theme is Conflicted, which can be interpreted in multiple ways; but the fact – or facts – remain that our world is in even more of a heightened state of flux than ever before.

Practical Info

The panel of international experts and the Format Curatorial Team will view the submissions and select up to five projects to be exhibited at FORMAT25 in March 2025.

The jury is composed of Jean-Christophe Godet (Founder & Artistic Director, Guernsey Photography Festival & GLAZ Festival), Wang Peiquan (Director of Lishui Photography Festival & Director of China Photographers Association), Wang Xueke Isabella (Director of International Department of Lishui Photography Festival), Clare Grafik (Head of Exhibitions, The Photographers’ Gallery), Franek Ammer (Curator, Fotofestiwal), Zoe Harrison (Head of Awards Production, British Journal of Photography), Varun Nayar (Independent Writer and Editor), Louise Fedotov-Clements (Director of Photoworks. Co-Founder/Patron of FORMAT), Gemma Marmalade (Senior academic and leader in photography at the University of Derby, UK, and Visiting Professor for the Creative Industries in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA), Peter Bonnell (FORMAT Director & QUAD Arts Programme Manager) and Poulomi Basu (Artist).

All submitting photographers will each receive a submission review by the FORMAT Curatorial team and their diverse jury of international industry professionals. Up-to 5 winning artists will receive an exhibition during FORMAT25 held between 13 March and 6 April 2025, an artist fee of £1,000, the reimbursement of travel costs up to £300, plus accommodation during the main opening weekend of the festival. The festival will cover the production costs for the exhibition. In addition, the selected works will featured in a copy of the festival catalogue and will have the opportunity to win one of the FORMAT25 Open Call awards.

The awards include the FORMAT25 Open Call Award consisting of £2,500 in exhibition production costs, The Spectrum Imaging Award for £1,000 plus VAT in printing services and 20% discount on print finishing, The British Journal of Photography Award for a year full membership of BJP (both digital and a subscription) and an article about the selected artists work published on 1854.photography; The Genesis Imaging Award for £1000 credit for photographic printing and finishing services, and the Lishui Photography Festival Exhibition Award for a selected artist to attend and exhibit at the next festival in Lishui, China.

About FORMAT

FORMAT International Photography Festival was established in 2004 and is the UK’s leading international contemporary festival of photography and related media. FORMAT organises a year-round programme of international commissions, open calls, residencies, conferences and collaborations in the UK and Internationally.

Previous festival editions have welcomed over 300,000 visitors from all over the world. The biennale and off year programmes celebrate the wealth of contemporary photographic practice, reflecting our love of and for photography and all its expanded fields. Our programme features everything from major conceptual works, participatory projects, documentary and all that falls between categorisation – from the mobile phone to the archive. We are concerned with what is happening right here, right now in the scene and beyond. FORMAT is the place to engage with an incredible range of new work alongside some of the best archives and established practitioners in the world.