EMOP Berlin - European Month of Photography is the largest biennial festival of photographic images in Germany. Museums, exhibition institutions, memorial sites, archives, libraries, collections, cultural institutes, universities, art academies and other educational institutions, municipal and private galleries and project spaces from Berlin and Potsdam - together with the exhibiting artists - are the key players in this open festival format.
Photography is the decisive visual medium of the present. Hardly any other medium shapes our society as much as its diverse uses and manifestations - whether in everyday cultural or artistic contexts. In around 100 exhibitions, EMOP Berlin therefore offers visitors the opportunity to get to know the medium anew time and again: in exhibitions with historical photographs or in shows with current artistic productions.
To kick things off, the EMOP Opening Days offer a dense programme of talks, panel discussions, book presentations, etc., not only to discuss the urgent questions surrounding the medium, but also to bring the different scenes in Berlin, Europe and internationally into contact and exchange.
In addition, an extensive communication programme will take the festival month across all districts of Berlin. EMOP Berlin shows the current range of international photographic work and how it is negotiated in the galleries, institutions and in the numerous project spaces. It also shows that Berlin is a central place of debate in terms of the social and artistic uses and around the theoretical discourses of photography, which we would like to bundle and present to you again and again with our festival format.
The 2025 EMOP Berlin Jury Statement
“With the photography festival’s 2025 edition, EMOP Berlin is becoming more popular in the city than ever before”, says Berlin-based visual artist and professor for photography Wiebke Loeper in reference to the approximately 170 submissions received. Of these, the jury selected exactly 100 exhibitions for the upcoming festival. Never before have so many photographers, artists, municipal and private galleries, project spaces, and major institutions and museums submitted exhibition proposals, the majority of which will be on view free of charge in the spring of 2025, spread around all of the city’s districts. The jury is particularly pleased that many exhibition venues are participating for the first time. Visitors can begin at the central festival location and then fan out into the city to get a closer look at photography in all its forms and to discover new sites for art and culture. Like the democratic medium of photography itself, the festival’s broad range once again presents itself as “extremely non-elitist”, as Berlin gallery owner Thomas Fischer remarks.
More than 80% of the projects submitted were based on the leitmotif what stands between us, which the festival team conceived as an optional thematic focus on current conflict situations. Without necessarily addressing questions concerning documentary photography in the art field, many of the projects are once again devoted to political issues such as the climate crisis, urban development policies, unjust regimes, and current wars, particularly the Russian-Ukrainian war. Another focus is on experimental photographic or photography-based processes, whether they consist in examining disappearing analogue techniques or applying the newest and latest technologies, such as AI. In the many discursive events planned throughout the festival, visitors can also discover and familiarize themselves with these new applications for photography in depth.
Overall, it’s noticeable that the number of national and international artists living and working in the city continues to be large. The jury sees this as an enrichment, but notes that the institutional hurdles for contemporary art photography are still high.
Given the increasing spread and importance of photographic images in a wide variety of social contexts, it is festivals such as EMOP Berlin that provide an important platform for the questions the medium raises. In any case, the upcoming edition of EMOP Berlin will once again present a festival that offers insight into “a medium in transition” and “a medium we are continuously redefining our relationship to” (Akinbode Akinbiyi).
Jury EMOP Berlin 2025: Akinbode Akinbiyi (visual artist, Berlin), Thomas Fischer (gallery owner, Berlin), Wiebke Loeper (visual artist and professor for photography, Berlin and Potsdam), Maren Lübbke-Tidow (artistic director, EMOP Berlin), and Mira Anneli Nass (art historian and photo theorist, Bremen).
Network. Berlin and its European Partners
EMOP Berlin is a member of the European Month of Photography (EMOP), a European joint project to which the photography festivals in Brussels, Lisbon, Luxembourg, Paris and Vienna belong. The idea of creating a European network of photo festivals was born in 2003 on the initiative of Berlin’s partner city Paris.
The aim of the joint project is to promote co-operation at European level, to strengthen the international photo scene, to intensify the exchange of information and experience and to support young artists. The results of this co-operation include jointly conceived exhibitions of contemporary photography, which can be shown in adapted form in each of the partner cities of the EMOP network.
Conditions of participation for EMOP Berlin
EMOP Berlin is open to museums, cultural institutions, project spaces and galleries from Berlin and Potsdam that are professionally involved in photography. Photographers who would like to participate in EMOP Berlin with their work can only do so if they have an exhibition space or cooperate with institutions. The next edition of EMOP Berlin will take place in March 2025. The open call for participation ended on July 31, 2024. We thank you for the numerous submissions.
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