Main Reasons To Apply To The PhMuseum Days 2024 Festival Open Call

Working with our team, joining an ambitious curatorial path and sharing a meaningful experience with a group of international artists are some of the reasons for which we recommend presenting your work.

1. Curatorship

It means to care. If there’s something we really care about, that is our festival: collaborating with artists, and sharing the results of this work with the public. Entering the open call means that your project can become part of the official program of an event created with love, where all the details – the setup, the graphic identity, the events program – matter. Something that will make your practice stand out.

2. Work with us

If your project is selected, we will have a preliminary call to get to know each other and learn all we need to know about it. Then, we will listen to your exhibition proposal or suggest our own, to join efforts and design a powerful show that can really reflect what you want to say. Working with us means exchanging ideas and sharing all we have learnt curating shows in the previous 3 editions, as well as in the last 4 years at the PhMuseum Lab, always looking at unconventional materials and challenging ideas.

3. A positive mood

Something we are really proud of is the positive and relaxed mood the festival achieves to have – a comment we have heard coming from many visitors and invited artists. Our idea is to indeed remove the distance you sometimes feel between cultural institutions and people enjoying their proposals. We want to facilitate interactions and exchange.

4. Networking

You will meet new people, listen to talks and share what you do. PhMuseum is 12 years old and we are happy to share a significant network of photographers, photo editors, curators, publishers and people who love working with visual language. Coming to the festival is a good way to engage with them, learn from them, and foster new connections that can be key to your practice.

5. Discover Bologna

The town is a hidden jewel in Italy. Quite protected from the main touristic circuit of bigger, more hyped cities, Bologna is well known for its University (the oldest in Europe), its cuisine and its nightlife – and it's mostly just a nice place to hang around. Here you can discover many important art institutions like the Museum of Modern Art (MAMbo), the Cineteca di Bologna (one of the world’s major film archives, whose L’Immagine Ritrovata lab has been restoring and preserving the legacy of cinema for over twenty-five years) and MAST Foundation, plus iconic places like Cassero, an LGBTI+ Center set in the former town’s XVII centre. With exhibitions spread all around the city, our program facilitates the discovery of old and new neighborhoods, as well as of institutions like the Archiginnasio, the location of the festival's collective show – an iconic place that used to be the main building of the University of Bologna, today housing a Municipal Library and an Anatomical Theatre.

6. Prizes

This year, we will offer a minimum of 4 solo shows, which are an opportunity to articulate your work within a powerful, thought-through path that can represent a career milestone. The 40-image collective installation is an engaging, significant way to be part of the festival. The projections will further bring light to your work. Plus, we pay for the production of the shows, we cover the flight and hotel expenses, and we grant you proper space to talk and present your work in first person.

7. Support the festival

We self-fund most of our festival. Applying is a small significant contribution to show your support, help us invest in the exhibitions, and prove that there is engagement from our community when talking with public or private institutions.

8. One thing leads to another

Even if you won't be selected as an exhibiting artist, you'll have a free ticket to join the event. Beyond its economic value, the idea is to offer you an excuse to jump on a flight/train/car and come see with your eyes the work that we do. PhMuseum – meant as a platform, a gallery, and a festival – is a collective project that grows year after year also thanks to the feedback, ideas and energies of those who actively participate in our activities. We look forward to welcoming you in town!

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All images from PhMuseum Days 2021, 2022 and 2023

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PhMuseum Days International Photo Festival is an event taking place in Bologna, Italy that brings together photographers and photography lovers across nationalities and styles. The new edition opens on 12 September 2024 under the theme Closer, an invitation to open up and observe things more carefully. The submissions' deadline is 9 May, with the early bird deadline set for 18 April. Learn more and apply here.