PhEST Pop-Up Open Call 2025

The call welcomes multidisciplinary projects with the opportunity for photographers and creatives to access several prizes offered by PhMuseum, LensCulture, FUJIFILM, and San Marzano Wines, as well as the chance to be part of PhEST 2025 in South Italy.

Overview

PhEST, International Festival of Photography and Art in Monopoli, Italy, launches the fifth edition of the international contest, on the theme of the 2025 edition of the festival This Is Us - A Capsule To Space, together with PhMuseum and LensCulture, and with the support of Fujifilm Italia and San Marzano Wines.

​After a 2024 edition dedicated to the dream, the 2025 edition of PhEST invites artists and photographers to investigate our relationship with time, memory and the future, and to imagine what humanity should send into space as a testimony of its existence. They are looking for work that is intense, intimate and profound, capable of telling our present with an eye to the future.

Practical Info

Applicants can submit their works via the online participation form. Each artist may register multiple projects for the call by filling out a new form for each project. The participation form must be completed in all its mandatory sections and accompanied by the required supporting materials, such as the project title, a PDF containing a brief description of the work of no more than 200 words in English and the related multimedia materials (photographs, drawings, links and any other material useful to present the project), and a CV or short biography (PDF format).

Artists may participate with any visual expression without limitation of medium, ranging from photography, painting, drawing, graphic design/illustration, sculpture, installation to video. For material specifications related to each artistic category, please download and read the General Rules.

Five prizes will be awarded by the international jury. The PhEST 2025 Award consists of an exhibition at the 2025 edition of PhEST, opening on 8 August 2025 in Monopoli, Italy. The San Marzano Award includes an exhibition dedicated to a participant residing in Puglia, Italy, at the 2025 edition of PhEST offered by San Marzano Wines. One selected artist will receive a mirrorless FUJIFILM Camera X-T50 black /XC15-45mm Kit worth € 1.679 offered by Fujifilm Italia. Plus, selected artists will be featured in an publication on PhMuseum’s communication channels, and a publication on LensCulture.

The jury is composed of Arianna Rinaldo (Curator of Photography at PhEST), Giovanni Troilo (Artistic Director at PhEST), Giuseppe Oliverio (Founding and Artistic Director at PhMuseum), and Jim Casper (Editor-in-Chief of LensCulture).

About PhEST

PhEST is the international photography and art festival in Monopoli, Italy. PhEST is produced and promoted by the PhEST cultural association, with the support of the Puglia Region and the Municipality of Monopoli. PhEST was born in 2016 in Monopoli in Puglia from an idea of ​​Giovanni Troilo, artistic director of the festival, and Arianna Rinaldo, who is in charge of the photographic curatorship. With the organizational direction of Cinzia Negherbon. PhEST is photography, cinema, music, art, contaminations from the Mediterranean. A way to give back their own voice to the thousand identities that make up the sea in the middle of the lands, redefining a new imaginary.