format27 open call: play

FORMAT International Photography Festival is delighted to announce that in March 2027 our FORMAT27 biennale will explore the theme of PLAY.

Our Open Call invites exhibition and event proposals from artists, collectives and curators across the world to respond to the festival theme with diverse and imaginative proposals. Our eminent panel of international experts, together with the FORMAT Curatorial team will review the submissions and select up to 5 projects to be exhibited at FORMAT27 in Derby between 11 March and 11 April 2027.

From its first inception, the essence of photography has centered experimentation, trial and error, and exploration of something unknown; the desire to record the world around us in a way that is as close to reality as the eye can see. From Niépce's first image to the Albumen print, photogram, cyanotype and collage, the very creation of the photographic medium and its continued evolution has been developed through the act of PLAY - experimentation as play.

PLAY is at the heart of the creative process, no matter the subject or idea; the act of exploration is what fuels us. FORMAT27 will seek to explore the theme in the widest possible sense, inviting people to think widely and challenge our interpretation of it. PLAY can be thought of as fun, joyful, intriguing, exploratory, experimental, challenging, deceitful, mischievous, imaginative, curious, provocative, inventive, spontaneous, subversive, engaging or perhaps rule-bending. Camera play, playing with and questioning the medium of photography itself, documenting the act of play, playing with the development of new technology, play as sport, playing with the truth or reality, the politics of play and the significance of the freedom of play being taken away are just some of the ways this broad theme could be interpreted.