Application deadline: March 6, 2023
https://re-touch-photocontest.com/
Freie Universität Berlin (FU-Berlin) supported by Kulturprojekte Berlin. Contest start: January 20, 2023 / Application deadline: March 6, 2023. To apply, please visit this website. Email: info [at] re-touch-photocontest.com.
On the occasion of EMOP Berlin - European Month of Photography 2023, professional and amateur photographers are invited to submit images exploring expanded surfaces of digital photographic images. Digital images on screens and smartphones play a significant role in our everyday social lives, media and networks, while being underestimated as photographic practices with a potential for critical agency and aesthetics.
The contest Re:Touch intends to create an opportunity to engage both, critically and artistically, in digital smartphone photography, its processing of images and its effects on society and (virtual) realities. Key questions are:
How can smartphone photography create new visualizations to restore relationships with ourselves, each other and the world within and beyond screens? What affective relationships and resiliencies may emerge from capturing phenomena beyond the established visual codes of social media systems? Which strategies emphasize decolonial and/or queer constructions of identity as socially engaged practices? How might a critique of digital image processing be documented? How do we encounter non-human photographs in a virtual environment? How do digital errors and glitches relate to digital infrastructures of power relations?
We are looking for photographs employing the smartphone as a starting point for a Re:Touch. Re:Touch something you believe you have lost touch with in a snapshot. Re:Touch something that needs a critical intervention for change in a screenshot. Re:Touch with an experimental digital photographic practice to overcome new and old barriers and boundaries of connectivity.
Participants may submit one digital image or a series of up to five digital images on the theme of Re:Touch. Winners will be selected by an independent jury and receive 1,500 EUR for first prize, 700 EUR for second prize and 300 EUR for third prize. Additionally, the works of the winners, as well as special mentions, will be published on our website. Winners will be announced on March 30, 2023. Entries may be submitted via an online form on the website.
Participants must be at least 18 years of age. Access the open call and conditions of participation here. This is a project of the MA Culture and Media Management at Freie Universität Berlin.
MA Culture and Media Management at Freie Universität Berlin
The practice-oriented master’s program at Freie Universität Berlin explores knowledge resources and methods for application in cultural and media management. Above all, the program familiarizes students with the intersections between art, culture and media studies. Synergies between theory and practice are particularly encouraged, as is an engagement with questions and methodologies drawn from different sciences, cultural institutions, and the arts. Students are frequently given opportunities for independent, interdisciplinary project development, implementation, and quality assurance across various professional fields. Our collaborators include: Archiv der Avantgarden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart - Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) and Kestner Gesellschaft. We also collaborate via metaLAB (at) FU, Freie Universität Berlin, an international research initiative with metaLAB (at) Harvard, Harvard University. metaLAB (at) FU operates as a transdisciplinary lab and as an experimental platform exploring new digital and creative knowledge practices in the scientific, cultural and social realm. More info here and here.
Kulturprojekte Berlin
Kulturprojekte Berlin is a company owned by the federal state of Berlin, aiming to strengthen and promote culture in Berlin. For approximately 15 years, Kulturprojekte has been cooperating with almost all of Berlin’s museums, theaters and memorial sites. In addition, Kulturprojekte Berlin collaborates with various associations, the independent scene, political and educational institutions. In this case, Kulturprojekte Berlin supports the Re:Touch photo competition in the context of its mentoring of the master’s programme Culture and Media Management with a focus on the project EMOP Berlin. More info here.
EMOP Berlin is a project by Kulturprojekte Berlin in cooperation with photo institutions in Berlin and Potsdam, Germany. It is a member of the European Month of Photography (EMOP), a European joint project that currently also includes the photo festivals in Brussels, Lisbon, Luxembourg, Paris and Vienna. More info here.
