SUBMISSIONS OPEN

SUBMISSIONS OPEN –

Image by Christine Osinski | Exposure 2024 International Exhibiting Artist

exposure 2025
International Open Call

Exposure welcomes diverse and innovative submissions from photographers and visual artists around the world who incorporate, celebrate or challenge the photographic medium within their practice. Submissions will be reviewed by our juror, award selection committees, and the Exposure team. Selected works will be shown at Contemporary Calgary as part of the 2025 Exposure Photography Festival.

JUROR – Liz Ikiriko

Liz Ikiriko is a Tkaronto/Toronto-based, Nigerian Canadian artist and curator, whose practice is informed by being an educator, maker and mother. Through collaboration and research, she supports and creates embodied experiences to facilitate moments of vulnerability and care for her communities. Her projects and curiosities engage, question and confront internalized systems of oppression.

Ikiriko is the Curator at Gallery TPW and co-founder alongside Toleen Touq, of wave~form~projects curatorial collective. She was the inaugural Curator, Collections and Art in Public Spaces at The Art Museum at the University of Toronto and was as a member of the curatorial committee of the 13th Edition of Bamako Encounters African Biennial of Photography in Mali, West Africa. 

Ikiriko received her MFA in Criticism and Curatorial Practice from OCAD University and has taught at Toronto Metropolitan University and Sheridan College. She has published curatorial and critical writings internationally with Aperture, Public Journal, C Magazine and Blackflash; held appointments on several gallery, institutional, and publication Advisory Boards; and has received funding from municipal, provincial, and national arts funding bodies. 

SUBMISSION FEE

The submission fee for up to three images is $35 CAD. Additional images may be submitted for $5 each, up to ten images total.

How to submit you work

Please review ‘SUBMITTING YOUR WORK’ and ‘SUCCESSFUL SUBMISSIONS’ in the sections below. These sections offer information on the application process as well as details on the exhibition and timeline. After you have reviewed these sections, please submit your work to the Exposure 2025 International Open Call HERE.

deadline

The deadline for submissions is October 4, 2024 at 6pm MDT. This deadline will not be extended. Applications that are submitted after the deadline will not be reviewed.

EXPOSURE OPPORTUNITIES 

Exposure Billboard 2021 featuring the work of Mirja Thiel. Photo by Louie Villanueva.

those who submit work will:

  • Have the opportunity to be featured on the Exposure Photography Festival curated Instagram account, reaching audiences worldwide! Exposure will be sharing examples of strong submissions throughout the duration of the open call. To enhance your chance of being featured on our platform, please make sure you submit your work early.

  • Gain visibility with the juror and Exposure team.

Those selected by the Juror will:

  • Exhibit their work in the Exposure 2025 Emerging Photographers Showcase at Contemporary Calgary. 

  • Be invited to become involved with the exhibition’s related programming.

  • Be invited to show selected work in a public exhibition presented on Pattison Outdoor digital billboards located in the City of Calgary.

  • Have their name and website link featured on the Exposure website as an artist profile, reaching audiences worldwide. 

  • Have the opportunity to win one of the Exposure Awards, as listed below.

  • Receive $181 Artist Fee (in line with CARFAC recommended Fee Schedule) 

  • Receive $150 Production Expense Allocation with Exposure 2025 Print Partner, ABL Imaging Group, to cover/support the cost of printing work for the exhibition. (For more details on the Production Expense Allocation see ‘Exhibition Details’ below.)

  • Have their work promoted in the Exposure 2025 official press release pack. Previous press has included British Journal of Photography, AnOther Magazine, Phmuseum, Avenue Magazine, NEXT Magazine, MUSÉE Vanguard of Photography Culture and more!

Exposure 2023 exhibitions at Contemporary Calgary. Photo by Louie Villanueva.

ABOUT EXPOSURE

The annual Exposure Photography Festival presents exhibitions that showcase photographic work by internationally renowned practitioners, alongside emerging and established talent from Alberta. The festival provides an exciting, innovative meeting place for photographers and art lovers to connect with one another, along with curators and photography professionals from around the world. Exposure is inclusive and participatory – a collaboration amongst members of the photographic community. Recent festivals have received over 900,000+ visits to its exhibitions from Exposure’s community of local and international, arts and non-arts engaged individuals and audience members. The festival brings people together to celebrate photography and Alberta’s thriving creative communities. Established in 2004, the Calgary/Banff Photography Society aka Exposure is a registered non-profit run by an enthusiastic Board of Directors who are devoted to photography.

BEFORE YOU SUBMIT YOUR WORK

  • Please read ‘The Fine Print’ and review the sections titled ‘ELIGIBILITY’ and ‘SUCCESSFUL SUBMISSIONS’ to familiarize yourself with the terms and conditions of the call for submissions. 

  • Select a series of photographs that best represents your practice and prepare a written statement about your work. Your submitted pieces should show a thematically connected photographic series. We strongly recommend that you submit one project-based body of work per submission. You may enter more than one body of work, however, if you choose to do so, you must separately pay the submission fee for each series you submit.

  • Images can be shot in any format, using any camera, on film or digital. We welcome diverse submissions from photographers and visual artists who incorporate, celebrate or challenge the photographic medium within their practice, including photo collage and experimental photography. If you are unsure if your work is eligible for this open call please email Exposure’s Festival Manager, Emma Palm, at Emma@ExposurePhotoFestival.com.

ELIGIBILITY 

  • All photographers, visual artists and creatives working with the medium of photography worldwide are eligible to submit their work.

  • Exposure is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We encourage submissions from members of underrepresented groups, and we welcome submissions from gender and sexually diverse individuals, racialized persons/persons of colour, women, Indigenous/Aboriginal People of North America, persons with disabilities.

  • Exposure is committed to supporting individuals who face barriers in applying for this or other Exposure opportunities.  If you require assistance, please email Exposure’s Festival Manager Emma Palm via emma@exposurephotofestival.com.

PREVIOUS EXHIBITING PHOTOGRAPHERS & ARTISTS

To see previous selected submissions visit the Exposure 2024
Online International Open Call Exhibition

successful submissions

Exhibition details

  • Prints can be displayed in a variety of ways including mounted, pinned, hung with magnets, or framed. Within your submission details please tell us how you prefer your work to be displayed and its preferred size.

  • Typically one work from an Artist’s submissions is selected for exhibition. 

  • All work accepted for exhibition will be printed in Calgary by our print partner ABL Imaging. Selected Artists receive a $150 Production Expense Allocation to support the cost of exhibition printing. In addition, ABL offers our artists a 20% discount on production costs. With ABL's discount, the Production Expense Allocation covers a range of options and almost all of our artists are able to produce their prints as desired with the allocated funds. If artists wish to exceed the allocation amount, the additional cost will be assumed solely by the artist.

TIMELINE

Call for Submissions goes live: August, 2024
Open Call Deadline: October 4, 2024
Notification of Results: October 31, 2024
Print Deadline: December, 2024
Exhibition Installation: January, 2024
Exhibition Opens: February, 2024


EXPOSURE 2024 international open call PARTNERs


LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that the Exposure Photography Festival takes place on the traditional Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot confederacy: Siksika, Kainai, Piikani as well as the Îyâxe Nakoda and Tsuut’ina nations. We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Métis Nation of Alberta, Region 3 within the historical Northwest Métis homeland. We would also like to acknowledge that Exposure Photography Festival is situated on land adjacent to where the Bow River meets the Elbow River, and that the traditional Blackfoot name of this place is “Moh’kins’tsis”, which we now call the City of Calgary. Finally, we honour and acknowledge all Nations, indigenous and non, who live, work and play in Moh’kins’tsis and help steward this land and honour and celebrate this territory.