About

Backlight Photo Festival invites photographers and artists working with lens-based media to submit projects for its 2026 edition in Tampere, Finland. This year's theme, The Art of Lying, seeks artistically, critically and socially engaged bodies of work. Selected artists will be presented as part of the international Backlight Photo Festival in September 2026, with works shown in gallery spaces, large exhibition halls and outdoor screens across the city. Each participating artist receives a 500 € artist fee, curatorial support and production within the limits of the festival budget.

About Backlight Photo Festival

Backlight Photo Festival is inviting photographers and artists working with lens-based media to submit their work for the Backlight Photo Festival 2026. We are looking for work that is artistically, critically and socially engaged and uncompromised. This year's theme The Art of Lying can be considered as a provocation. It probes the evolution of photographic truth in our contemporary world where the material and online realities we inhabit are shifting at accelerating speed. 

Throughout its history, photography has manipulated reality – it is an instrument of framing, omission and abstraction. Furthermore, since our digital landscapes have grown bloated with post-truth aesthetics such as AI-generated images, deepfakes and other slop, it feels increasingly difficult to discern photographic truth from manipulated information. Our screens are overwhelmed by a vast array of premeditated misinformation, and this aesthetic panorama is further saturated by the tint of biased algorithms, and other AI models. What are we not seeing?  

We would like to consider truth (and lies) as a construct that is shaped by the surrounding social, technological and political fabric. Truth may be biased, approximating facts while bordering fiction. It may be personal, intimate, political. Truth may be hiding behind the photographic pixel or film grain. It may be noisy or clean -- washed out or subsumed by shadows. 

The current political climate is propelling people into binaries -- either for or against, truth or lies. As a result, the layered multiplicity of human thought is watered down into passivity. How do we then maneuver through the influence of binaries and banalities as image makers? The Art of Lying encourages participants to think through subjects that converge two opposing truths, methods or technologies, and to be open to contradictions that may pertain to truth regardless of their apparent incompatibility.

This call is open to committed photographers and art professionals working with lens-based media. 

Applicants may submit projects as an individual or as an artist group/collective/pair. 

The curators are particularly looking for larger bodies of work, either produced as a series, or site specific installation.

The Backlight Photo Festival will take place in September 2026, in the city of Tampere Finland. The festival will be presented in two different kinds of locations :

1. Indoors, in a gallery setting / large exhibition hall https://discover.matterport.com/space/XLcayz37gBK

https://valokuvakeskusnykyaika.fi/en/nayttelyt/tilat/

2. Outdoors, on screens, around the city and on trams

Screen information:
Vertical format: 1080 x 1920 px
File size: 16--26 MB/sec
Formats: mp4, jpg
Video length: max. 10 seconds

What winners receive

The artwork selected for this exhibition will be presented as part of the Backlight '26 International Photo Festival in Tampere, Finland, in September 2026. The participating artists will receive a 500 euro presentation fee.

The festival will consider the needs of each project, and produce projects whenever possible within the limitations of the festival budget.  

Backlight strives to minimise the festival's carbon footprint, and therefore is committed to use local materials and/or prefers to print images locally, in Finland whenever possible. Images printed in Finland will be paid for by the festival.

Selected artists are encouraged to apply for travel grants from their local governments and foundations.

About the festival

Backlight Photo Festival is an international photography festival organised every three years in Tampere, Finland. Founded in 1987 and organised by Photographic Centre Nykyaika, Backlight is one of the oldest international photo festivals in Northern Europe. The festival showcases contemporary photography that addresses social, cultural and global issues.

Each edition presents a curated programme of exhibitions and side programme. The upcoming edition will take place in the autumn 2026 with the theme: The Art of Lying.

Throughout its triennial cycle, Backlight continues its work year-round by hosting exhibitions and developing long-term partnerships across Europe and beyond. The Photographic Centre Nykyaika, the organisation behind the festival, runs a contemporary photography gallery in Tampere, where monthly exhibitions form the core of its ongoing programme alongside the triennial festival.

How to enter

A short, written personal introduction (approx. 600 characters)

A short, written proposal describing their artwork submission (max. 2000 characters)

Texts should include the location(s) most suitable for the work. (screen, gallery, or exhibition hall) Note: The text can be free form, but the curators would also be interested in hearing how the “the art of lying” is reflected in the proposed artwork, and more about the artist’s relationship to the subject of their work.

Images of or related to the proposed artwork (5 - 15 images)

Application payment of 20 euros* (*If payment of the application fee is an obstacle, it is possible to take part in the open call, free of charge. Such applications will be taken into consideration only after sufficient argumentation is provided. For further information please contact info.nykyaika@backlight.fi

Judging criteria

For this exhibition, the curators are looking for lens based art, by artists from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences. Special attention will be given to projects that mix or hybrid techniques under the category of lens based art.

The curatorial team is particularly interested in applications that consider power structures along with the artist’s own position (in relation to their subject) as well as projects that share intimacy and speak to our common humanity.

The curators are looking for larger bodies of work, either produced as a series, or site specific installation.

We expect that any proposal made with the help of artificial intelligence will be credited as such.