Theme for Guest Room

Guest Room is all about sparking collaboration. For this edition, Martin Morgenstern and Sandra Buschow from the PORTRAITS - Hellerau Photography Award 2025 have teamed up with Christina Töpfer, editor-in-chief of the magazine Camera Austria International.

Coinciding with the tenth edition of the PORTRAITS - Hellerau Photography Award, the theme for this Guest Room is: "Echoes of Truth."

"On the one hand, our theme reflects the various historical, cultural and political layers that have historically covered our founding building, the Festspielhaus Hellerau, over the course of more than a hundred years. It was built as an educational facility for music and rhythm, housed a large exhibition of expressionist painting in the 1920s, a police school during the Nazi dictatorship and a Red Army hospital after the end of the Second World War. After the political turnaround of 1989, the site was renovated in the 1990s and has now been a 'European Centre for the Arts' for twenty years. All these periods have left their mark on Hellerau, and we, the team of the PORTRAITS – Hellerau Photography Award and with us, hundreds of artists with their exhibited works have also left our mark here.

On the other hand, we are living in over-politicized times. Here in Dresden, in Saxony, in Germany and in Europe, we are currently facing huge political challenges. Wars, inflation, the rise of the extreme political fringes with their overly simplistic answers to people's concerns. Most recently a presidential election in the USA in which the focus was less on facts than on populist volume - all of this is leading us towards an era in which truth is devalued as a currency. It only appears in distant echoes, and you have to be very sensitive and look and listen carefully to catch a glimpse of it."

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
• Receive the opportunity to present a solo satellite exhibition in Dresden (Germany), starting in June 2025 as part of the PORTRAITS - Hellerau Photography presentation

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@dergreif.org to receive a voucher code which will allow you to enter for free.

About Martin Morgenstern

Martin Morgenstern (DGPh) is the co-founder and director of the PORTRAITS – Hellerau Photography Award. He completed a Master's degree at Royal Holloway College (University of London, UK) and has worked as a journalist and lecturer. In 2011, he founded the Verlag der Kunstagentur Dresden, which publishes books on photography and music. In 2020, the Deutsche Fotothek purchased 28 of his works.

About Christina Töpfer

Christina Töpfer is an editor, writer and cultural worker with a background in American Studies, Communication and Media Studies and Visual Studies. Since 2018 she has been editor-in-chief of the magazine Camera Austria International, for which she worked as an editor from 2013. Until 2017, she also worked for the Graz Museum, where she was responsible for the museum's publishing activities and curated various exhibitions on contemporary urbanist themes.

About Sandra Buschow

Sandra Buschow is a Photographer, Cultural manager, Lecturer and Curator. She graduated as a photo editor from Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin. Buschow is a member of Herspective Photographers and DGPh. Her artistic work has been awarded and exhibited internationally. Since 2023 she is Picture Editor of the PORTRAITS catalogues. She lives and works in Berlin and Switzerland.

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.