Theme for Guest Room

Each edition of Guest Room creates a dialogue between images and ideas, offering an evolving space for experimentation and reflection within contemporary photography. This Guest Room sees award-winning author and Harvard professor Sarah Lewis and African Modern Art Historian Jessica Stark exploring the theme "When They See Us."

“What does it mean to be seen? Why does it matter? This Guest Room is titled ‘When They See Us’ in honor of two artists and thinkers: the acclaimed director, Ava DuVernay, and the late curator, Koyo Kouoh.

The homonymous miniseries, ‘When They See Us,’ co-written and directed by Ava DuVernay, examines the case of the now-exonerated Central Park Five, Black and Latino teenagers who were falsely accused and wrongfully prosecuted for an assault in New York City’s Central Park. The highly politicized case was a reminder of the crisis of regard we are in in the United States. One of the recent exhibitions Koyo Kouoh co-curated, ‘When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting,’ looks to DuVernay’s series and offers several perspectival shifts – from ‘they’ to ‘we,’ from a focus on the United States to Africa and its wider diasporas, and from externally imposed narratives to self-definition. Foregrounding leisure, intimacy, peace, and play, the exhibition affirms the power and political agency of Black joy and underscores what becomes possible when one is fully seen.

‘When They See Us’…the sentence is deliberately unfinished. What happens when we truly see one another? This call invites works that exemplify the prompt it contains – the challenge of seeing each other fully.”

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 10€
• 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

Der Greif is a registered non-profit. In these challenging economic times – especially for arts organizations and artists – we are convinced to provide a vital platform for our community. If you're in the position to support this mission, we value your support.

Since launching Guest Room in January 2015, we've invited a broad range of professionals (gallerists, editors, curators) to create opportunities for artists to share their work and get it in front of an international network they might not have access to otherwise. We are more commited than ever to continue this work.

We suggest a voluntary 10€ donation to help us sustain these efforts. If you'd like to support us further, we also accept regular donations via our Raisely page.

If you're unable to contribute financially, please email voucher-guestroom@dergreif.org to receive a 50% or 100% discount code. Your artistic and financial contributions enable our continued growth.

About Sarah Lewis

Sarah Lewis is an award-winning author and Harvard professor whose work explores themes from the gift of failure in the creative process to the intersections of art, race, and democracy. Her writing has appeared in and been profiled in leading national publications, and her scholarship has reshaped conversations on visual culture and citizenship. She is the founder of Vision & Justice and co-editor of the Vision & Justice Book Series, launched in partnership with Aperture. Before joining the faculty at Harvard, Lewis held curatorial positions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate Modern, London. 

About Jessica Stark

Jessica Stark is a historian of photography and modern African art. She earned her PhD in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University and was most recently the McCormick Postdoctoral Research Associate in the History of Photography and Lecturer in the Department of Art & Archaeology at Princeton University. Stark’s work has appeared in leading journals and her research and curatorial insight have contributed to exhibitions at the Harvard Art Museums, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. Based in Cape Town, she is currently the Research Fellow at Vision & Justice.

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.