FORMAT announces 2025 Open Call theme: CONFLICTED

Take part in the next edition of the FORMAT25⁠!

FESTIVAL THEME:

We are delighted to announce the festival theme CONFLICTED for the FORMAT25 Biennale and welcome diverse and imaginative proposals from international photographers, curators, artists and collectives.

Our eminent panel of international experts and the FORMAT Curatorial Team will view the submissions and select up to 5 outstanding projects to be exhibited at FORMAT25 in Derby in March 2025.

Our Advisory Jury are:

Jean-Christophe Godet (Guernsey/France), Wang Peiquan (China), Wang Xueke Isabella (China), Clare Grafik (UK), Franek Ammer (Poland), Zoe Harrison (UK), Varun Nayar (US/India), Poulomi Basu (India/UK)Louise Fedotov-Clements (UK), Gemma Marmalade (UK) and Peter Bonnell (UK).

Read more about the FORMAT25 Open Call jurors here

FORMAT25 – CONFLICTED

Festival Theme:

Throughout history societies, civilizations and cultures have been subject to division and catastrophic change amidst periods of stability and peace. Recent times have borne witness to what would seem to be one monumental change and challenge after the other – a seemingly endless slew of emergencies including the Covid pandemic, a cost-of-living crisis, catastrophic wars, coupled with a sense – across the globe – that political populism is becoming the norm. Consensus, agreement and simple kindness can at times seem to be at a premium. The world is a conflicted place. Yet, photography is a medium that can have an uncanny ability to speak truth to power, to succinctly and powerfully reflect the world about us, and to make us stop, think and reset. Who better to help us through this time, to guide us and to help us understand, than the artist, the photographer; the filmmaker?

We are open to all approaches and ideas – from archives to the most contemporary and conceptual projects. We are keen to receive proposals from all the image-based genres – film, video, photographic series alongside single images; long-term researched documentary; multimedia; VR; moving image; installation; publications; online; interactive; performance; participatory; mobile and interactive.

Application Fees and Deadlines

Application fee, Standard 27 euro

For full details on how to apply, please visit the submission site here.

FORMAT is organised by and is a partnership between QUAD and the University of Derby with generous funding from Arts Council England.

 

 

Latest News

East Meets West 24/25 

Deadline to apply 5th November GRAIN Projects (Birmingham), FORMAT, and QUAD (Derby) are delighted to announce a new iteration of their successful East Meets West Masterclass Programme, which will take place in a hybrid format, both in person and online. The masterclass programme is for UK based emerging photographers and offers professional development, inspiration, guidance and support in a…

FORMAT Instagram Page Hack

As some of you may have noticed, the FORMAT Instagram page is currently unavailable due to a hack. While we navigate this situation we are asking our followers to ignore any…

DANCING THROUGH TIME COMMISSIONS ANNOUNCED

We are delighted to announce that Francis Augusto and Jordan Baseman have each been awarded a commission via the recent Dancing Through Time open call. Both artists will exhibit new work made during the commission…