Open Call

Home 2026 Edition Open Call

This Open Call offers visual artists and photographers from around the world the opportunity to exhibit their work at the 20th edition of the Festival, which will be held from May 28 to June 21, 2026. On such a special date, the theme could only be… RESET, the button invites us to reboot the system.

The jury, made up of Pablo Berástegui, Lea Tyrallová, César Gónzalez-Aguirre and María Ptqk, has selected the following 12 shortlisted projects and 3 winners:

Winners 2026

Mohamed Hassan – Our Hidden Room (Egypt)

Yun Ping Li – 回家 (huí jiā) (China / Spain)

Yuxing Chen – The Oriental Scene (China)

Shortlist 2026

Hannes Jung – Men Don’t Cry (Germany)

Emilia Martin – godsips (the serpent’s thread) (Poland)

kwonhaeil – Modern House (South Korea)

Greta Valente – It Takes All Kinds (Italy)

Akshay Mahajan – People of Clay (India)

Gui Christ – M’kumba (Brazil)

Barkat Mehra – Underwood (United Kingdom)

Catarina Osório de Castro – Mãe (Portugal)

Jatin Gulati – Effigy of Man (India)

Emilio Nasser – Shipwreck of Dreams (Argentina)

Maria Sturm – You Don’t Look Native to Me (Romania)

Jiatong Lu – Nowhere Land (China)

Jury

Pablo Berástegui (Nelson Miranda), Lea Tyrallová (Estudio Foto Barcelona), César González-Aguirre (Juan R. Laguno), María Ptqk (Maider Jiménez)

Pablo Berástegui
Cultural producer and director of La Casa Encendida (Madrid)

Born in Pamplona, Spain, in 1968, he is a cultural producer with more than twenty-five years of career who has directed large-scale projects such as Donostia San Sebastián 2016 European Capital of Culture, PHotoEspaña Festival (2002-2006) and La noche en blanco (2007-2010). He was also responsible for important cultural spaces such as Matadero Madrid (2008-2012) and Conde Duque Madrid (2013). With a special interest in photography, he was director of the Salut au monde! project in Porto (2019-2023), where he presented and curated exhibitions by artists such as Luis Cobelo, Kovi Konowiecki, Bharat Sikka, Elena Anosova, Cristóbal Hara, Bernardita Morello, Felipe Romero Beltrán or Deanna Pizzetelli, among others. He has also curated E tú, por quê es preto? by Rubén H. Bermúdez (Espaço RAMPA, Porto), Eira by Nelson Miranda (Portuguese Centre of Photography, Porto), Deslocamentos (Porto Photography Biennial), We Are Family XL, various artists (Niemeyer Centre, Avilés), Sustentar, various artists, together with Virgilio Ferreira and Krzysztof Candrowitz (Porto Photography Biennial) and Ogrodowa8 at Lodz Fotofestiwal in Poland.

Lea Tyrallová
Editorial coordinator and project director at La Fábrica publishing house (Madrid)

She was born in Nitra, Slovakia, in 1984. She holds a degree in Portuguese Philology from Masaryk University (Czech Republic), graduated in Photography from IEFC (Barcelona) and a master’s degree in Comparative Literature, Art and Thought from Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona). She has been working in the publishing sector since 2014. She was production coordinator at RM publishing house (2014-2023) and is currently project director at La Fábrica publishing house. She has given workshops on photobook production at Magnum Agency or Comenius University, Slovakia, and has been a jury member for several international photobook awards and competitions such as the StarPhotobook Dummy Award, Fotolibro>40 or the Grand Prix Images Vevey. Lea has also worked as a translator and lecturer on the master’s degree in Documentary Photography at the School of Visual Arts in Barcelona (LCI) and as assistant editor of photography books at the publishing house Absynt (Slovakia).

César González-Aguirre
Independent curator (Mexico City)

Born in 1991 in Mexico City, where he lives and works. His research reflects on the relationship between body, memory, and desire, and explores visual culture from a queer perspective. He was chief curator of Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City from 2017 to 2021. His curatorial projects include Pirates on the Boulevard. Public Irruptions 1979-1989. Agustín Martínez Castro (2018), The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. Nan Goldin (2019) or Positive Negative. Cultural Adherences in the Fight Against AIDS. 1978-2022 (2023) all carried out at the Centro de la Imagen; Aristeo Jiménez. Only Those Who Desire Survive (2024) at the Monterrey Museum of Contemporary Art or Reynaldo Rivera. Letters from Hollywood (2025) in Drama Hall. César is co-founder of the FORMA photography programme (Monterrey, Mexico), has participated as a tutor in the SOMA and CAMPO academic programmes, and as a nominator for the Foam Paul Huf Award of Foam Amsterdam (2023). He is also co-founder of Archivo Memoria Trans México and since 2023, he has directed the independent space Drama in Mexico City, dedicated to thinking queer and vernacular imagery as well as visual archives produced by Latin communities. He is currently the curator of the Discovery Award at Les Rencontres d’Arles (France).

María Ptqk
Independent curator, cultural researcher and curator of Getxophoto Festival (Bilbao)

She holds a PhD in artistic research, a degree in Law, Economics a DEA in Public International Law and Cultural Law, and a master’s degree in Cultural Management. Her work focuses on the intersections between the arts and techno-scientific culture. She has worked with a number of leading institutions, among them Medialab Prado, Fundación Daniel y Nina Carasso, CCCB, Jeu de Paume, La Gaité Lyrique or GenderArtNet. Some of the exhibitions she has curated are A propósito del Chthuluceno y sus especies compañeras (Espace virtuel du Jeu de Paume), Ciencia fricción. Vida entre especies compañeras (CCCB and Azkuna Zentroa), Extinción Remota Detectada (LABoral) or Máquinas de ingenio (Tabakalera). She has edited, among others, the collective books A Brief History of the Pepper for Extraterrestrial Use (2017) or Species of the Cthulucene: An Overview of Practices for a Wounded Planet (2019). She is an advisor to the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation and the publishing house consonni. Since 2024, she has been responsible for the editorial coordination of the academic art, science and design journal .able.