Theme for Guest Room

Guest Room is dedicated to igniting collaboration. Christiane Monarchi, the founding co-editor of Hapax Magazine and founding editor of Photomonitor, is teaming up with curator Eva Eicker, an expert focusing on social and cultural issues for critical engagement with contemporary photography.

For this edition of Guest Room, they have crafted the guiding framework: "Wortbildsalat / word-image-salad." Christiane Monarchi and Eva Eicker extend an invitation to create a communal poem, whose image-text interplay evolves throughout the 15 days of the online curation.

This theme draws inspiration from Surrealist salons, reflecting the artistic practices of figures such as André Breton and Marcel Duchamp, who famously collaborated on "cadavre exquis" or "exquisite corpse" creations, merging words or drawings.

Artists are invited to submit images accompanied by a caption formed of a line of text or another form of language experiment which can act as a gateway into an internal world. We welcome you to share an inner experience of the submitted photograph with us and join in crafting a photographic "Wordbildsalat / word-image-salad".

Each day’s curation of selected images will generate an experimental image-based poem inviting readers along on a journey of connections between visual and linguistic cues. In juxtaposing the internal and visible world, this Guest Room curation will be an artwork in its entirety, unfolding as a 15-part love letter to inner worlds accessed through the photographic.

Why submit to Guest Room?

• Get the chance to be awarded a 1.000 € Guest Room Scholarship sponsored by MPB
• Be discovered by two experts in contemporary art and photography
• Get published in an online showcase on Der Greif alongside emerging artists from all over the world
• Submit for free or pay a voluntary donation of 8€
• Please note: Images which have been selected for a previous Der Greif opportunity are not eligible for re-submission. We want to support the broadest range of photographers possible and therefore encourage you to submit work that has not yet been selected by our past Guest Curators. Any images which do not comply with these terms will be removed from the selection process.

Voluntary donation

After over a decade of serving the international photography community Der Greif is now finally a registered non-profit. We believe this organizational structure best reflects our artistic and cultural mission. As always, your artistic contribution makes our work on Der Greif possible.

Since starting Guest Room in January 2015, we’ve been working hard to invite a broad range of practitioners, from gallerists to editors and curators. We are convinced that this format is an interesting and low-barrier approach to help artists get their work in front of people who might be interested in working with them. For this reason, we are asking you to consider making a financial contribution as well. That’s why we’re suggesting a voluntary donation of 8€ as a submission fee. 100% of the funds we collect from your donations will go towards helping us continue providing interesting opportunities for the photography community through Guest Room, and thus expand Der Greif.

We believe in inclusivity. We don’t want this suggested donation to stand in the way of your submission. If you are unable to contribute financially, please send an email to voucher-guestroom-2@dergreif.org to receive a voucher code which will allow you to enter for free.

About Christiane Monarchi

Christiane Monarchi is a founding co-editor of Hapax Magazine, a biannual print publication commissioning new photographic ideas since 2021, currently working on its sixth issue. She is the founding editor of Photomonitor which has published more than 1,400 online features since 2011 and is now working in partnership with the University for the Creative Arts and bookRoom. Christiane is a curator, lecturer, and artist mentor and serves on the steering committee of Fast Forward, Women in Photography, and as a trustee of the Centre for British Photography.

About Eva Eicke

Eva Eicker is a Photography curator living in London, UK. As a photography expert she is focussing on social and cultural issues for a critical engagement with contemporary photography. With a background in Anthropology, her interest lies in interdisciplinary aspects such as collaborative work, sound and materiality in relation to photography. Amongst others, she worked as Curator at The Photographers’ Gallery (London) for many years; The National Portrait Gallery (London) as well as at Studio Tacita Dean; Magnum Photos (London); Hauser & Wirth (London); and The Museum of Modern Art (NYC).

About Der Greif Guest Room

Guest Room is a monthly online exhibition with open submissions curated in real-time by personalities from the international photography scene. Der Greif is an award-winning organization for contemporary photography. It is print-publication, online-publication, curatorial team and joint project all at once. Der Greif connects the digital and the analogue, exploring and expanding the borders and limits of image-distribution and -reception in the digital era.