Internationale Photoszene Köln 2025 Open Call

Up to 20 artists will be selected for group exhibitions to be held at the Photoszene Festival in May/June 2025 in Cologne, Germany, and will receive a €500 exhibition fee.

Overview

Internationale Photoszene Köln is delving into the theme of Feelings & Photography. The search is on for works of art that engage with the theme of feelings.

The open call focuses on contemporary phenomena in photography, and simultaneously takes a look at what stirs our feelings in the world. Equally, it poses the question of what, under what circumstances, prompts our compassion. Feelings are one of the last specifics of human – or natural – life and appear to be a significant marker of differentiation against the supremacy of machines. At the same time, feelings are quite deliberately incorporated into media-based and visual communications, and algorithms get daily emotional reactions out of us as consumers of images. They are something internal, but shaped by society at the same time; feelings are profoundly personal and yet not private; feelings are political dynamite and are simultaneously often negated; feelings influence life paths and create new visibilities; feelings form connectedness and transform social structures at the same time. In short: Feelings mould our existence and our togetherness in the world.

What role can photography play during engagement with feelings and what role do feelings play in contemporary photographic concepts? How do feelings find their way into the picture and in what way do they reach beholders?

Although feelings, by definition, are immaterial and subjective, photography can make them visible, experienceable and comprehensible – and stir and amplify them, too. Every day, through being disseminated in the media, the potentials of photographic images influence our entire life sphere; they convey to us emotions, states of mind, attitudes and equally, perspectives onto what prompts our feelings.

Practical Info

All international artists, photographers, students and graduates who work with the medium of photography and its extended tools are welcome to apply. Submission must include the completed and signed registration form, a CV, an artistic statement with a portfolio of past works and/or an informative website, and project outline or a project PDF of the work whose content engages with present-day themes of Feelings. Photographic series can be submitted that tell of feelings and various states, but are also presented in a form and manner that stir feelings when the images are viewed. The works can be linked to the theme of Feelings in terms of content and/or technique.

Up to 20 positions will be selected by the jury for the group exhibitions to be held at the Photoszene Festival in May/June 2025 in Cologne, Germany. Plus, selected artists will receive a €500 exhibition fee. The Photoszene can pay a travel allowance for travel to the festival. There is the possibility of a production cost subsidy if the work has not yet been produced or needs to be adapted for the exhibition space. The group exhibition will be integrated into an international public relations and press campaign as part of the Photoszene Festival and made accessible to a large audience.

The jury is composed of Jan Borreck (Curator, Essen), Linda Conze (Head of Photography, Kunstpalast Düsseldorf), Felix Hoffmann (Artistic Director, Foto Arsenal Wien and Foto Wien), Donja Nasseri (artist and curator, Düsseldorf), Rebecca Racine Ramershoven (Artist, Cologne) and G. Kühnhardt Alvarez (International Photoscene Cologne).

About Internationale Photoszene Köln

The International Photoscene Cologne 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.