LUMA Rencontres Dummy Book Award 2026

For the 57th edition of the festival, Les Rencontres d’Arles and the LUMA Foundation are once again organizing the LUMA Rencontres Dummy Book Award, a prize to help publish a book dummy.

Overview

Initiated in 2015 and endowed with a production budget of €25,000, the award is open to professional photographers and artists using photography, upon proposal of a book dummy that has never been published. Special attention will be paid to experimental and innovative editorial forms.

Les Rencontres de la photographie and the LUMA Foundation will form a jury to select the shortlisted dummies and the prize recipient. This set will be exhibited as part of the official programme of the 2026 festival.

Practical Info

The award is open to photographers and artists of all ages and nationalities who use photography as their primary medium. To be eligible, applicants must demonstrate a professional track record through previous solo or group exhibitions and publications that have earned them national or international recognition. Each applicant may submit only one unpublished project that is not currently under contract with a publisher. Furthermore, the submission should be a prototype, reflecting the intended materials, paper type, and scale. It must be technically and financially viable within the award’s production budget, though the designated publishing house reserves the right to modify the design upon winning.

Applications may be submitted in either French or English, though the dummy book itself will be presented in its original language. The application requires two steps: first, completing the online registration form on the official Les Rencontres d’Arles website; and second, mailing a physical copy of the dummy to the festival headquarters in Arles. This package must be clearly labeled with the candidate's full name and the title of the work. For international shipments, applicants are responsible for all customs fees; the organization will refuse any packages with outstanding charges, resulting in the invalidation of the application. All physical parcels must be postmarked by 13 May 2026 to be considered.

The initial selection process will be conducted throughout June by representatives from Les Rencontres d’Arles and the LUMA Foundation. The jury will evaluate projects based on their editorial quality, as well as their technical and financial feasibility within a traditional book production framework.

All shortlisted dummies, including the prize recipient, will be exhibited as part of the official festival program from 6 July to 4October 2026. The prize recipient will be officially announced on 10 July 2026, during the festival’s opening week at the Théâtre Antique.

About The Rencontres d'Arles

The Rencontres d'Arles is a summer photography festival founded in 1970, which has gained a worldwide reputation as a springboard for photographic and contemporary creative talents. The exhibitions are given on various heritage sites, suitably stage-designed for the purpose.