Open Calls

Fondament and Der Greif invite you to peer behind the curtain of the everyday. "Ich seh' etwas, was du nicht siehst" explores the multifaceted layers of social life in Germany, taking its title from the German version of the game "I spy with my little eye."

We are looking for photographs and photographic works that tell more than one story and leave room for different readings. Images that don't just offer a single, clear-cut explanation, but allow for multiple perspectives. We are seeking submissions that make this tension visible: between one's own gaze and a possible counter-gaze, between perception and interpretation. That's why we deliberately ask you: What do you see that others don't?

Fondament is a non-profit organisation dedicated to making poverty and social inequality visible and to strengthening photography and art as tools for reflection and change. Working with networks across art, culture, and the social sector, Fondament creates spaces for dialogue and initiates creative projects.

For additional background information in German on "Ich seh' etwas, was du nicht siehst," please visit Fondament.

Deadline: September 1, 2026 at 11:59 PM CET Submit

We invite LGBTQIA+ lens-based artists to explore queer life, identity, and community through photography and image-based practices.

We welcome work engaging with self-representation, chosen family, intimacy, visibility, and the relationship between public and private space across different cultural and geographic contexts.

Selected artists will be featured in an online exhibition on Der Greif and invited to participate in small-group critique sessions through our Face-to-Face program. Participants will also gain visibility within Der Greif’s international community, with opportunities for future collaborations through Der Greif Studio. Deadline: June 15, 2026 at 11:59 PM CET Submit

Photo by Asafe Ghalib.

Guest Room is a monthly online exhibition hosted on Der Greif with open submissions curated by key curators and artists from the field of contemporary photography and visual culture. For this edition, For this edition, curator and researcher Annet Dekker invited Margriet Schavemaker to collaboratively explore "The Brilliance of the Mundane".

They invite reflections on the unnoticed and the unremarkable: images rooted in everyday life, shaped by happenstance, and hasty habits. We want to explore how these fragments operate as a form of digital folklore fuelling the aesthetics and energies of contemporary image practices. Rather than dismissing this proliferation as mere banality, we ask: how to restore dignity to these images? How to speak about what appears grey, unfocused, glitched, out of framing, or merely repetitive, and in doing so, sharpen our perception of the brilliance of the mundane?

Deadline: June 12, 2026 at 11:59 PM CET

Submit

Photo credits (left to right): Annet Dekker's portrait by Mieke Gerritzen, from the series "My Friends", 2017; Margriet Schavemaker's portrait by Annaleen Louwes.

The 57th Rencontres d'Arles unfolds under the theme "Des mondes à relire" ("Worlds to Re-read"), an invitation to revisit how photographs construct meaning, memory, and identity. Our collective workshop and in-person face-to-face edition "Read Against the Machine" in collaboration with Foundation Manuel Rivera-Ortiz (MRO) responds to this framework by reclaiming the slow, unpredictable, fundamentally social act of looking at photographs together.

Selected participants for both initiatives will have their work screened as part of our community night event on July 10.

Apply by June 14 at 11:59 CET

Photo credit: Amelie Sachs.

Der Greif has invited Zanele Muholi, supported by Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung, to guest-edit Issue 19.

The theme for the open call is “I Am Because of You, Mother Earth.”

Muholi asks: "What if the environment was not something outside of us, but something we are part of? What if our bodies, histories, and relationships were understood as landscapes shaped by connection rather than separation?"

We invite photographers, writers, poets, and artists to explore what environment means when we move beyond boundaries between self and surroundings.

Why submit?

• Have your work seen by renowned artist Zanele Muholi
• Get the chance to be published in Issue 19 and get a free copy plus additional copies at a highly discounted rate.
• Be part of related events Der Greif will organize in relation to the release of Issue 19 during Paris Photo 2026 and beyond.
• Get the chance to publish an Artist Feature on dergreif.org, a highly-frequented international source of photographic art.

Deadline: June 20, 2026 at 11:59 PM CET

Submit

"In Focus" invites artists and publishers to submit recent photobooks and artist books for editorial consideration. This open call creates space for critical and poetic approaches to the photobook as a form of authorship, collaboration, and storytelling. We welcome publications that engage thoughtfully with contemporary life, visual culture, and the material and narrative possibilities of the book. Selected projects will be featured in Der Greif’s editorial platform, offering international visibility and long-term archival presence.

Deadline: June 30, 2026 at 11:59 PM CET

Submit

Photo credits (left to right): Les Rencontres d'Arles 2024 © Amelie Sachs; Leipzig Photobook Festival 2026 © Walther Le Kon.