Talent Latent 2026

Selected artists will be featured in a SCAN Festival exhibition at Tinglado 2 in the Port of Tarragona, Spain, and will receive a €500 artist fee.

Overview

SCAN, the international photography festival organised by Tarragona City Council, has opened the call for entries for Talent Latent, aimed at creators from all over the world who use photography as an essential and preferred means of expression.

The projects and artists selected from this call will be part of the central exhibition of the SCAN festival, which will be held at Tinglado 2 at the Port of Tarragona, Spain, from 16 October to 29 November 2026.

Published in 1915 in the midst of a profound crisis, “Kafka’s The Metamorphosis” has become a lasting metaphor for reflecting on the transformations that shape our contemporary world. Metamorphosis is not a mere change in appearance but a profound process through which one reality becomes another.

Today, in a world marked by alienation, dehumanisation and a crisis of values, structures that once seemed solid become liquid, mutable, or on the verge of disappearing. Identities, territories, forms of work, personal relationships and ecosystems are constantly being redefined, giving rise to new ways of inhabiting the world.

In this context, photography has also undergone its own metamorphosis: from an imprint of light linked to capturing a single moment, to a hybridised, digital, and algorithmic construct open to multiple forms and meanings.

The exhibition invites emerging photographers to explore the metamorphic condition of the present, addressing transformations affecting individuals, communities, and environments through analogue, digital, and expanded practices, and proposing new perspectives to help us understand the times we live in.

Practical Info

Applicants must submit photographic projects or works in which photography is hybridised with other creative languages. Entries must be submitted using the entry form available on the festival’s website. Submissions must include personal contact details, a brief biography, project title, a brief explanation (250 words), and a zip file (max. 30 MB) with a maximum of 20 photographs from the same series. Artists may include a PDF with complementary information to facilitate the jury’s understanding of the project. Projects in Catalan, Spanish, or English are accepted.

The curatorial team of the SCAN Tarragona Festival will select the projects and artists that will make up the 2026 Talent Latent exhibition.

For each photographic series exhibited, the author or individual responsible for joint projects will receive a one-time payment of €500, including taxes, for copyright and exhibition fees. Additionally, SCAN will invite the artists participating to attend the festival’s opening. The invitation will include 1 night accommodation in the festival hotel, breakfast included, admission ticket for the catered opening event (16 October 2026), admission to Full Contact professional meeting (17 October 2026), and lunch at the Full Contact premises (17 October 2026).

SCAN will make photographic prints in a trusted professional lab. Once the exhibition is over, if the artist has not informed SCAN of their wish to have any copies made returned to them, the copies will be destroyed. If the artist wishes to have the copies returned to them, the cost of collecting and shipping the works will be borne by the artist.

About SCAN Festival

Organised by Tarragona City Council, SCAN Tarragona International Photography Festival offers the public a transversal and inclusive program of exhibitions, screenings, conferences, and workshops.