Theme for Guest Room

Guest Room fosters collaboration and sparks creative exchange. For this edition, photographer and visual artist Sarker Protick joins forces with photographer and Aalto University associate professor Donald Weber to explore the following theme:

"Architectures of Power"

"Power drifts between what is visible and what is hidden. Images act like decrees, shaping how we see land, people, and histories. They have been used to plan, police, extract, and persuade but they can also challenge and resist those forces. Power is not abstract; it is material. It is built, zoned, cooled, metered, lit, and secured. It lives in roads, substations, fibre routes, warehouses, ports, and data centres – the architectures of power that draw energy and water, control movement, and reshape neighbourhoods. Photography can trace these structures, making so-called ‘immaterial’ ideologies tangible by showing how they bind energy, water, land, and labour. Histories persist in easements, parcel lines, and place names, shaping how power is experienced, felt, and lived. Archives are infrastructures too – systems that classify, index, and withhold. Photographs have long served states and corporations as tools of proof and persuasion. Yet they also circulate as counter-evidence, disrupting official records and surfacing local and situated knowledge. We invite series that treat photography not only as expression, but also as method and evidence. Field photographs, rephotography, technical or administrative images, public records, and community documentation are all welcome – alongside more interpretive and experimental approaches."

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
• Win a Face-to-Face feedback session with the curators
• 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 Sarker Protick

Sarker Protick works between photography and moving image, balancing abstraction with explorations of the socio-political cartography of Bangladesh and the Bengal region. Infrastructures become conduits where histories sediment and reemerge. A teacher at Pathshala for over twelve years, he co-curates Chobi Mela and co-curated Colomboscope 2024. Protick’s work has earned major fellowships and features in global collections, and he is represented by Shrine Empire, Delhi.

About Donald Weber

Donald Weber, originally trained as an architect and having worked with Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam, explores the technological, spatial, legal, and political systems shaping our world—the infrastructures of power. A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of multiple awards, his work has been shown globally, including at the UN and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Weber is an Associate Professor at Aalto University and co-founded the Master Photography & Society at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.

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.