Theme for Guest Room

Guest Room aims to spark collaboration. Curator, writer & scholar Renée Mussai, who pursues a special interest in Black feminist and queer visual arts practices, has chosen to collaborate with Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, a writer, artist & artistic researcher engaging in a process-oriented practice that deals with the condition of Black life in the African diaspora. Together, they have developed the following framework for your submissions: "Response-ability — Touch/Change — Otherwise".

"Taking our cues from Toni Morrison’s potent expression of ‘response-ability’ and Octavia E. Butler’s generative ideas of transformation, we invite artists to consider notions of change — chemical, social, emotional, personal, political, economic, sexual, cultural, physical, and otherwise.

How might photographic visions convey different states of being and becoming? How might we activate the medium’s potential to embrace and shape change? What do images forged from the trans/formative powers of change look like? Whose touch do they desire/require? What temperature is their pictorial climate? How might we activate our art-and-change-making capacities responsibly to cultivate and practice freedom(s), and see — look — think — live — act differently? What can photography offer in moments of precarity — a visual blanket, shield, or embrace? What might a photographic shelter look like? In times of global turmoil that require critical action on many fronts, with human rights violations abound, what kinds of images — or image bodies — activate change, internal or external, collective and individual? How might photography offer visual paths and possibilities to imag(in)ing otherwise?"

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

About Renée Mussai

Renée Mussai is an independent curator, writer and scholar with a special interest in Black feminist and queer visual arts practices. Formerly senior curator at Autograph, she is research associate at VIAD, University of Johannesburg, and associate lecturer at University of the Arts London. In 2023 Mussai was co-curator for R/evolutions, the 14th edition of PhotoIreland, and artistic director of The Walther Collection. Her books include Lina Iris Viktor—Some Are Born to Endless Night; Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama; Eyes That Commit—A Visual Gathering and Black Chronicles (both forthcoming).

About Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński

Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński is a Vienna-based writer, artist, and artistic researcher whose works manifest in a variety of media. Rooted in Black feminist theory and practice, she engages in a process-oriented practice that deals with the condition of Black life in the African diaspora. Doing so, she interlaces varying spaces and temporalities, thereby resisting clean-cut separations between documentary and speculation. Recent solo and group shows include Respire (Liverpool) (2024), Iré (2023), Liverpool Biennial (2023), You are awaited but never as equals (2023), and Seven Scenes (2022).

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.