Theme for Guest Room

Guest Room is a format that fosters collaboration and sparks creative exchange. For this edition we welcome Hanmi Museum's Senior Curator Sunyoung Kim and artist Shinwook Kim, who reflect on the theme "Hyperobjects: Archipelagic Memories."

"Coined by the British philosopher Timothy Morton, hyperobject describes phenomena so vast and distributed across time and space that they exceed direct human perception. Imperialism, Cold War geopolitics, capitalism, climate crisis, and contemporary data infrastructures are among the hyperobjects shaping present-day life. Though often intangible, these systems permeate everyday existence, structuring political realities, social relations, and collective memory.

We approach photography as another kind of hyperobject. Photography no longer merely records reality; it operates as an inescapable visual environment that conditions how reality is perceived, sensed, believed and ultimately structured. Within this visual field, contemporary subjects continuously imagine and construct identity, desire, trauma and history.

This open call focuses on photographic practices that examine how images circulate across digital and material networks, fragmenting, reshaping, and reproducing personal and collective histories. We approach these fragmented histories as an archipelagic condition shaped by war, division, developmentalism, geopolitical violence, migration, and unresolved Cold War realities. Though often no longer directly visible, these structures continue to haunt the present.

Photography operates here as a secondary hyperobject; a system that renders historical traces perceptible while simultaneously shaping how the relationship between past and present is sensed and understood. The archipelagic memories reconstructed through images persist like ghosts, continually circulating through contemporary visual culture and unsettling the present.

We invite photographers and lens-based artists whose practices critically engage with these historical and visual structures, revealing the invisible systems through which contemporary histories continue to shape lived experience."

Why submit to Guest Room?

• Get the chance to be awarded a 250 € Der Greif Guest Room Scholarship
• 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€
• Win a Face-to-Face feedback session with the curators
• 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 Sunyoung Kim

Sunyoung Kim is a senior curator at Museum Hanmi, Seoul, where she oversees
exhibitions and international exchange programs. Since 2015, she has led the open-call program MH Talent Portfolio, fostering collaborations between emerging artists and the museum. Her research focuses on medium specificity and contemporary photographic practices under post-medium conditions, particularly the intersections of expanded photography with social, cultural, political, and aesthetic histories. Shecontributes regularly to Photo Art and is currently pursuing doctoral research at CREAM, University of Westminster, while serving as an adjunct professor at Chung-Ang University Graduate School.

About Shinwook Kim

Shinwook Kim is an artist based in Seoul, London, and Milan. His practice explores
the relationship between place, memory, and environment through observation and the collection of everyday materials. Focusing on notions of “placeness” shaped by lived experience, he examines how migration, displacement, and rupture transform relationships to sites and their hidden narratives. He has exhibited widely across Europe and Asia, and his works are held in public and institutional collections. Kim is currently an Assistant Professor at Kyungil University and is represented by CE Contemporary, Milan. He recently received the British Council’s UK Alumni Awards for Culture and Creativity.

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.