OPEN PROGRAM 2027
Open Call for Fotofestiwal Open Program 2027. Submit your project by 30 November 2026.
Open Program offers artists the opportunity to present their work to the audience of the International Festival of Photography in Łódź, Poland, in June 2027. We are looking for artists and collectives with distinctive voices and projects that offer bold and original perspectives on photography and the contemporary world.
The Open Call is unrestricted in terms of subject matter and age. Projects created in any photographic or visual medium are welcome. An international jury will select six projects which, in cooperation with the Fotofestiwal curatorial team, will be presented as part of an exhibition during the festival in Łódź.
The Open Program also offers an opportunity to enter an international network and develop your professional practice. Each year, Fotofestiwal nominates at least one artist from the submitted projects to join FUTURES – a Europe-based photography platform supporting the professional development of emerging artists from around the world.
WHAT SELECTED ARTISTS RECEIVE
Six selected projects will be presented during Fotofestiwal in Łódź. The organisers provide:
- an exhibition during Fotofestiwal in Łódź for 6 selected artists,
- an artistic fee of EUR 1,000,
- accommodation during the festival’s main opening weekend,
- reimbursement of travel expenses of up to EUR 300,
- a budget of up to EUR 600 for exhibition production or transportation of works.
Fotofestiwal attracts more than 20,000 visitors, offering selected artists an opportunity to present their work to a broad international audience.
HOW TO SUBMIT
Each artist may submit a maximum of two projects. The submission fee is EUR 15 per project.
In justified cases, a free submission may be available. To ask about this possibility, please contact the organisers at opencall@fotofestiwal.com
Submit your project:
https://site.picter.com/fotofestiwal-open-call-2027
TIMELINE
1 October 2026 – Open Call opens
30 November 2026 – Submission deadline
25 January 2027 – Results announced
June 2027 – Open Program exhibition during Fotofestiwal in Łódź
JURY – FOTOFESTIWAL OPEN PROGRAM 2027
Jana Johanna Haeckel
Dr. Jana Johanna Haeckel’s curatorial and scholarly practice focuses on issues of image and body politics in contemporary art. As artistic director, she is curating the 4th photo + Photography Biennial in Düsseldorf in 2027 and teaches the history of photography and exhibitions at KASK & Conservatorium in Ghent.
She has curated numerous international exhibitions and authored several publications, including Love Maybe (Distanz, 2025), Everything Passes Except the Past (Sternberg Press, 2021), and Photography Today. Resistant Faces (Pinakothek der Moderne, 2020).
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Marta Szymańska
Marta Szymańska is a photography curator and cultural events organiser. For over twenty years, she has been a co-creator of Fotofestiwal in Łódź, where, together with the Fotofestiwal collective, she is responsible for the festival’s programme and development strategies. She also gained experience working with photography as vice-director of the Archeology of Photography Foundation (2014–2019).
She has been collaborating with the Sputnik Photos collective for many years. She is an active portfolio reviewer and serves as a jury member in photography competitions.
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Francesco Rombaldi
Francesco Rombaldi is a curator, editor and book designer working in contemporary photography and independent publishing. In 2016, he founded Yogurt, a curatorial platform dedicated to visual culture, which later developed into Yogurt Editions, a publishing house specializing in photobooks, Yogurt Creative Agency, and Charta, a project dedicated to photobook culture.
Over the years, he has developed exhibitions, publications, educational programs and editorial projects, collaborating with authors, festivals and institutions. Alongside this work, he is involved in editing, mentoring and project development for both emerging and established photographers.
He has lectured and taught at universities, festivals and cultural institutions. His curatorial and editorial work has received international recognition, grants and awards in the fields of contemporary photography and visual culture.
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Roï Saade
Roï Saade is an artist, designer, and curator whose practice moves across photography, bookmaking, and visual research. Rooted in collaborative and process-based methodologies, his work examines how images, printed matter, and design can shape collective memory and challenge dominant narratives. Through publishing, exhibition-making, and archival practices, Saade explores the relationship between visual culture, displacement, and cultural production in the Middle East and North Africa.
As the founder of Huwawa Publishing and director of Bound Narratives, Saade develops platforms that foreground underrepresented visual histories and contemporary storytelling practices from the region. His editorial and design work approaches the photobook as a conceptual and material form that carries historical knowledge, political narratives, and alternative modes of seeing.
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Krzysztof Candrowicz
Krzysztof Candrowicz is a curator, sociologist, researcher and project facilitator. Co-founder of Fotofestiwal in Lodz. From 2013-2018, he worked as artistic director of the Triennial of Photography in Hamburg (Germany), and from 2018 to 2024 he worked as guest curator and collaborator of the Ci.CLO Porto Biennale (Portugal).
Krzysztof works internationally as a guest curator and visiting lecturer in numerous organisations, museums, schools, and festivals in Europe. He has been a member of the jury of various projects and art prizes, including the Rencontres d’Arles Discovery Award (Arles, France), Robert Capa Award (Budapest, Hungary), Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (London, UK), Prix Pictet (London, UK), LUMA Photo Book Award (Arles, France) and World Press Photo.
ABOUT FOTOFESTIWAL
Fotofestiwal was established in 2001 as one of the first photography events in Poland. Since then it has grown into one of the most relevant photographic festivals in Europe but its core mission has not changed: presenting photography in its various ways (via exhibitions, films, slideshows, workshops etc.) but also talking about important social issues and introducing the unobvious beauty and unique history of our city to the audience. For such reason we organize thematic exhibitions in various post-industrial spaces, which Łódź is well known for, we put stress on networking parties, but also every year we try to develop new ways of talking about photography: via events such as Photo-Match: Completely Different Portfolio Review, during which we focus on having equal status granted to the curators as well as artists, with formula of presentation that numerous festivals are applying worldwide now with a success. Since 2016 we work as a collective, with no board of directors, developing a new way of cultural institution management.
Questions about the Open Call:
opencall@fotofestiwal.com
