Eyes open: Your gaze counts

“Ich seh etwas, was Du nicht siehst”: Fondament x Der Greif open call launches to challenge perspectives on social life in Germany

At Der Greif, we have always believed that photography is at its most powerful when it stops giving simple answers and starts asking complex questions. It is this exact philosophy that drives our latest collaborative project, an open call titled "Ich seh’ etwas, was du nicht siehst" ("I spy with my little eye").

Launched in partnership with the non-profit organization Fondament, our main funding partner, this open call invites anyone passionate about photography, amateurs as well as professionals, to share their unique, multifaceted perspectives on social life in Germany, offering a creative platform that is entirely free to enter.

What makes this collaboration so vital is the core mission that defines Fondament. As a non-profit entity, Fondament is dedicated to bringing issues of poverty and social inequality out of the margins and into public awareness. They champion photography and contemporary art not merely as objects of aesthetic appreciation, but as essential catalysts for reflection, dialogue, and lasting social change. By building bridges between art, culture, and the social sector, Fondament creates spaces for projects that challenge dominant narratives. For this specific project, they have invited us to help craft an open dialogue that actively asks anyone who loves picture taking and making what they see that the rest of society might not yet recognize.

The theme invites anyone to showcase the perspectives that are often overlooked, misunderstood, or hidden from the mainstream gaze. We are looking for the friction, the community, the quiet moments, and the structural realities of German society through your lens. To ensure a rich and multi-layered perspective, submissions will be reviewed by a diverse, five-member jury representing the intersections of photography, media, and social advocacy. True to our roots at Der Greif, we are searching for work that embraces ambiguity and invites the viewer to look closer and think deeper.

Through its diverse collaborations and initiatives, Fondament demonstrates how art can serve as a vital landscape for social dialogue, empathy, and self-reflection. This exploration of structural inequality and invisible social backgrounds manifests most recently in Fondament's short film project, “TWO HANDS” (in German with English subtitles). It captures the hopes, fears, and frustrations of twenty six young Berliners from vast socio-economic spectrums, ranging from affluent Zehlendorf gymnasiums to neighborhood youth clubs in Moabit. The film bypasses facial biases entirely to focus exclusively on the expressive, gestural movements of its subjects' hands, asking a poignant question to a generation navigating uneven starting lines: does the future truly lie in their hands? This short film finds a deeply intimate parallel in the monthly discussion series “Klassenzimmer – Woher kommst du wirklich?” (“Classroom – Where are you really from?”) that took place at the Schaubühne Berlin and can be watched online, too. For Klassenzimmer, Journalist and author Vanessa Vu guided audiences through personal biographies to confront the unacknowledged class divides and capital disparities shaping German society.

How did our collaboration with Fondament come together, and what are we truly searching for in the submissions? To dive deeper into the creative synergy and the deep societal intent driving this partnership, keep an eye on our Articles tomorrow: we will be publishing an exclusive interview piece with Fondament’s Managing Founder Josefine Cox and our Artistic Director Caroline von Courten, the minds behind the open call, where they will share the inspiration and hopes behind this unique project.