PhMuseum Days 2026 Photography Festival Open Call

PhMuseum's Artistic Director Giuseppe Oliverio, counting on the advisorship of 3 exhibiting artists from the festival's last edition, will select at least 3 projects that will be granted an individual exhibition within the festival's main location – the newly re-opened, historical Ex Ospedale dei Bastardini in the center of the city.

Each of the selected photographers will receive a production budget up to €2,500+VAT, plus an artist fee of €300 and a contribution to cover travel expenses and attend the inaugural weekend (€300 if based in Italy, €500 if coming from Europe and €800 from overseas).

The jury will select a project to be exhibited on eleven public billboards in Via dell'Abbadia, a street in the historical center of Bologna, joining the legacy of Munirah Almehri, Gloria Oyarzabal, and Mahalia Taje Giotto. Formerly belonging to the municipality of Bologna and now recovered by cultural association CHEAP, the billboards represent an opportunity to take over a street in almost its full length, reach to a broader audience, and experiment with design solutions within a given formal structure. The exhibition allows to bring pressing issues and ideas in the public space, taking an active role within the city's vibrant cultural debate.

The exhibition production costs will be fully covered. The selected photographer will receive an artist fee of €300 and a contribution to cover travel expenses and attend the inaugural weekend (€300 if based in Italy, €500 if coming from Europe and €800 from overseas).

PhMuseum's Artistic Director Giuseppe Oliverio will select up to 40 images for a collective sculptural installation that will challenge the main theme of the festival.

As in the past editions, the chosen images will be printed on semi-transparent tissue averaging 1.60x1.80 cm, and mounted on a scaffolding pipes system giving life to a monumental visual maze. The exhibition will take over the historical courtyard of the Archiginnasio, an iconic former main building of the University of Bologna, attracting thousands of visitors every week. Running from 19 September to 8 October, the installation radically transforms the way the Archiginnasio is perceived and lived, allowing for a sensorial and physical experience of images, and for a suggestive dialogue between history and contemporary visual language.

Both applicants presenting a structured body of work and those applying with a selection of images are eligible for this installation.

PhMuseum's Artistic Director Giuseppe Oliverio will select up to 20 projects to take part in a collective video projection that will be included in the festival's main program and screened in a dedicated area every day.

Yes, you retain full copyright at all times. By applying you just grant us a license to publish your work in the Open Call’s results page and for promotion of future editions of our Open Call program. In both cases, we will get in touch with you to check it’s all good and get a further approval on you end.

ARCHIPELAGO is the theme of this 5th edition. It draws inspiration from the 2005 book by Massimo Cacciari with the aim to explore crisis as both an inherent part of our journey and an opportunity to discover new models of coexistence. We are looking for projects that explore or question the cultural islands of our time, offering a space for dialogue capable of integrating the other and opening new mental horizons.

You should upload a minimum of 5 photos and a maximum of 20 photos.

The maximum size allowed is 20MB, yet we recommend you upload lighter files yet in a good resolution, as our website is programmed to automatically compress the photo in order to make the navigation faster. As a reference, we suggest you to upload a file where the resolution is 72 dpi with at least 1000px on the shortest side, and weighting around 2MB in order to speed up the upload process.

You can upload photos in JPG and PNG format. TIFF and other formats are currently not allowed.

Yes, collaborative projects are accepted. Just create a joint account and insert all the photographers names and surnames. If you have issues, drop us a line at support@phmuseum.com.

Yes, the independent panel of judges has changed from the previous editions, and they will assign the prizes according to their own criteria. So you’re welcome to present again the same project.

Yes, both finished and ongoing projects are welcome, and they will be judged in the same way. The goal of the open call is indeed to provide opportunities that could work both for ongoing and completed projects.

The text shall be a description of your project in which you explain its concept/story and provide all the relevant information. There is no character limit, yet we recommend you to stay within 500 words. We also recommend you to explain briefly what the project is about in the first paragraph. Then develop the concept/story in the next 2-3-4 paragraphs, trying to be exhaustive yet clear and synthetic. The judges will review several projects per day, so helping their work will be an advantage for you.

You can select the cover photo of your submission at the moment of uploading the photos of your submission. Please notice that it can be cropped into a squared format for the results announcement.

That passage of the T&C is necessary to point out that we are not liable in case one of the subjects portrayed in your work complains and/or even starts legal actions against us because he/she did not consent to that photo. For this reason, we will not ask for model releases, unless those kinds of situations arise. Bearing that in mind, please feel free to apply, unless you think there might be any risks in that sense. For more info, please read our platform Terms and Conditions.

As an independent organisation with no donors and no sponsor behind, we need the entry fee to run the open call (human resources, technological infrastructure, judges, etc…). The entry fee also invites applicants to take the submissions seriously. For this edition, the entry fee is €30, yet you can benefit from the Earlybird discount with the entry fee being €24 until 16 April at 11:59 pm GMT. The entry fee will go up in case of an Extended Deadline.

Currently, the accepted methods are Credit cards, Debit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal.

You will see a confirmation message just after completing the payment, and receive a confirmation email at the email address associated with your PhMuseum account. You will also see a copy of your submission in the submissions section of your PhMuseum profile. If you grant us the permission to share the submission as Featured Submission on social media, you will also see a copy of your submission in your PhMuseum's Account. You can edit its privacy settings or any other info from the posts section.

You can always download it from the link you will find in the submission confirmation email. Otherwise simply select Orders from your personal PhMuseum's menu.

You can upload as many projects as you want, yet one at a time.

Sure, you are welcome to upload diptychs, triptychs, and multiple images. The important thing is to respect the limit of 20 uploads/files per entry.

Yes, you can with certain limitations. If you apply before the Early Bird Deadline, you can edit your application until the 3rd day after the Early Bird Deadline. If you apply after the Early Bird Deadline, you have time until the Final Deadline. To edit your submission just click on Submissions from your personal PhMuseum's menu.

When you successfully complete your application, we store it in the judges’ review system. At the same time, we create a copy into your PhMuseum profile. You can edit the latter, yet those changes will not affect your submission. To edit your submission just click on Submissions from your personal PhMuseum's menu.

Your submission is already private and visibile to the judges only. For what concerns the copy automatically saved in your profile, you can edit its privacy settings anytime. Just click on Posts from your personal PhMuseum menu. Then click on Edit and scroll down until you see the privacy options.

In order to recover your password please go to Forgot Password. Enter your email and click Email Password Reset Link. Go to your email account, open the email from PhMuseum and follow the guided process. Please notice that the Reset Password link expires after 60 minutes for security. If you do not click on the link you receive via email within an hour, you will need to ask for a new one.

We do not take or store any payment details on our servers. Our payments are securely processed via Stripe or PayPal, both widely recognized services through which we accept payments. Here you can learn more about their security procedures: Stripe or PayPal.

Please double check your email and password combination. If your browser automatically fills your username, please insert the email address associated to your account instead. Should you still have issues, drop us a line at support@phmuseum.com.

You are welcome to submit mixed media projects as long as photography and its language are at the core of your submission. If you use generative AI programmes you must mention so in the project text and refer to your working process and possibly the archive you are employing.