Theme for Guest Room

Guest Room aims to spark collaboration and creative exchange. For this edition, Joanna Zylinska - an artist, writer, and professor of media philosophy and critical digital practice at King's College London - joins forces with Yanai Toister, an internationally exhibited artist whose practice centers on photography and conceptual art. Together, they present the framework for your submissions: "WHERE is the photographic image?"

The question, "What is photography?", has shaped the debate around, and practice of, the photographic medium since its early days. This question has become even more prominent in the age of digital imaging and AI. But we want to shift the focus from photography’s identity to its location, literal and metaphorical. This leads us to ask: Where is the photographic image today? Is it in the eye? In the brain? In our memory? In a database? Joanna Zylinska and Yanai Toister invite submissions that offer poetic, experimental and inventive responses to these questions.

Why submit to Guest Room?

• Be discovered by an expert 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.
• Get the chance to be awarded a 1.000 € MPB Guest Room Scholarship

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 Joanna Zylinska

Joanna Zylinska is an artist and curator whose practice involves experimenting with different kinds of image-based media. She is also an author of a number of books, including "The Perception Machine: Our Photographic Future Between the Eye and AI" (2023), "AI Art: Machine Visions and Warped Dreams" (2020) and "Nonhuman Photography" (2017). Zylinska teaches media philosophy and critical digital practice at King’s College London, and is a member of Creative AI Lab, a collaboration between King's and Serpentine Galleries.

About Yanai Toister

Yanai Toister is an artist, writer and educator. His art practice – primarily in photography and conceptual art – has been exhibited internationally (e.g. Kunstahalle Luzern; Maison Europèenne de la Photographie, Paris; 11th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale). Toister’s book, "Photography from the Turin Shroud to the Turing Machine" (2020), examines the development of photography as an inscriptive, depictive and programmable medium. Toister teaches visual information at Tampere University in Finland.

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.