IPFA Award 2025 Open Call

IPFA welcomes photographers to connect with festivals, curators, and audiences around the world.

Overview

The International Photography Festivals Association (IPFA) invites photographers and artists from around the world to participate in the IPFA Award. The open call aims to be a platform to explore, share, and transform contemporary photography, connecting photographers with festivals, curators, and audiences worldwide.

Practical Info

With an open theme, IPFA accepts projects of any style or approach: contemporary, documentary, social, urban and street photography, analog, nature and wildlife, or creative and experimental photography, among others. Submission must include up to 10 images per project, a CV, a biography, and a project description.

Each project will be evaluated by a jury of 20 festival representatives from different areas, ensuring diversity of perspectives and selection criteria. Originality, innovation, visual coherence, narrative strength, and international projection potential will be highly valued.

After submitting the proposal, each curator will select one project for a solo exhibition at their festival. Based on their votes, 50 artists will be chosen to participate in a collective touring exhibition that will open in Barcelona on 19 March 2026 and travel to other festivals. In addition, the 20 selected artists and the 50 finalists will be featured in the IPFA Photographers Repository, created to promote their work and make it accessible to curators and festivals around the world. Finally, all selected participants will receive discounts for conferences and portfolio reviews during the 2nd International Meeting of Photography Festivals in Barcelona in July 2026, further expanding their international exposure.

​The jury is composed of Albes Fusha, Astrid Jacomme, Arnaud Laroche, Carine Van Gerven, David Pujado, Constanze Müller, Jair Lenin García, Ioana Cobzaru, João Kulcsár, Linda Simeone, Julio Pantoja, Lisa Cates, Mauricio Mejía Muñoz, Louise Fedotov Clements, Osaze Efe, Paco Membrives, Szilvia Mucsy, Panagiotis Pappas, Xavi Herrero, and Yannick Ribeaut.

About IPFA

The International Photography Festivals Association (IPFA) aspires to be a global network uniting more than 1.000 photography festivals existing in the world. Their goal is to establish this association to foster collaboration, innovation, and professionalization within the photography festival community. This initiative aims to provide a platform where directors, curators, producers, and artists can elevate their festivals through networking, knowledge sharing, and best practices. They aim to create an inclusive and horizontal event where all photography and photobook festivals and fairs are invited to participate, from the most emerging to the most established and well-established.