OPEN CALL ROTLICHT 2026

SUBMIT AND BE PART OF
THE MAIN EXHIBITION AT ROTLICHT 2026

Our main exhibition in 2026 will again take place on the impressive premises of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. On over 1300 m2 we will open the festival with our 20 winners from the Open Call 2026. 

The theme of this year’s festival is »Anthropocene: Hybrid Realities« and your submission should be at least marginally related to this theme. The Open call is open from 01.05.2026 till 30.06.2026. More information about the rules, as well as the Q&A, can be found here!

Anthropocene: Hybrid Realities

The Anthropocene – often described as the age of humankind – names an epoch in which human activity decisively shapes the Earth’s ecological and geological systems. Yet this narrative of dominance may itself be a construct.Ideas of control, progress, and technological mastery stand in tension with a world increasingly defined by instability, complexity, and fragility.

Analog photography inherently challenges this paradigm of control. It is grounded in light, chemistry, time, and contingency. Imperfection, material presence, and process are not flaws but fundamental qualities of the medium. With the theme Anthropocene: Hybrid Realities, the festival invites artists to critically and poetically explore the relationship between human, nature, and image — between intervention and dissolution, influence and vulnerability, construction and decay.

Humanity consumes resources as if they were unlimited, reshapes landscapes, replaces ecosystems with artificial environments, and is increasingly described as a geological force in its own right. How can photography respond to this condition? What hybrid realities emerge between the natural and the constructed, the organic and the synthetic, the real and the staged?

We welcome submissions that engage with these tensions and expand the discourse through experimental, critical, and process-oriented approaches in analog photography.

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Submit to Rotlicht 2026

Q&A

We welcome participation from any content creator aged sixteen (16) or over, other than affiliates, employees of the organizer (”Zigutamve. Association for contemporary photography”) or any competition jury member.

Fill out our Open Call Submission form. Complete your entry by uploading images. Pay for your entry. You will receive confirmation of your submission and payment via email.

We only accept photos taken in the last 5 years (2021-2026).

Yes.

Yes, you can. Every project will be treated individually and will be getting the full attention of our jury.

You will receive an email confirmation of your submission. If you aren’t sure whether your entry was successful, please email program@rotlicht-festival.at

The fee is € 20 (one project). 

Entry fees are non-refundable.

We use images to promote the festival and exhibitions in print and online. By participating in the Open Call or in an exhibition or other part of the festival programme, you agree to the use of your work. It is our responsibility to credit each image appropriately. We as a team are all photographers and sensitivity in this regard is very important to us! 

If your project is selected by our jury, the photos from your submission will be printed and published in the catalogue and other media associated with the festival if your project is selected by our jury. In this regard, it is important to upload your photos in the correct resolution, name and quality. We accept only images / projects with at least one analog process. Completely digital images / projects won’t be accepted.

  • JPEG file types only.
  • Maximum file size 5MB
  • Minimum dimension of 2000 pixels on the longest edge
  • 300dpi
  • Photos must have EXIF, except analog

All entries must be original photographs taken by the participant, and must not have been altered or enhanced by any form of AI technology. Unless it is deliberately a hybrid concept that treats AI as a theme.

Entries that are found to have been created using AI technology will be disqualified.

The decision on the main exhibition and the winners of the Open Call 2025 will be made by the jury. Our jury consists of international curators, festival directors and experts we have commissioned for this task. You can find out more about this year’s jury here. The jury members will judge all submissions individually and independently. Follow the link to find the members of our Jury.

We at Rotlicht Team do not exclude digital photography. We see it as an enrichment. In order to be able to submit to the Open call or to be present in an exhibition during the festival, your work must have gone through at least one decisive analogue process. It doesn’t matter if this was done while photographing or printing the work. 

 

Find all information about our terms of use here.

 

1. Participants in the main exhibition of Rotlicht Festival 2026 at the festival headquarters (Atelierhaus der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien)
2. Publication in the official festival catalogue 2026 + 2 issues 
3. Reward of € 250,-
4. All artists who wish to travel to the festival will receive a travel allowance of € 150. 
5. Grand Prix Winner get free stay at our Partner hotel Korotan
6. Festival pass 
7. Free registration for the Open Call of our partner festival Photodays Rovinj 2027
8. The jury also selects a Grand Prix winner from the 20 winning projects. This artist will receive an additional solo exhibition in the Photo Cluster Gallery, a further € 250 prize money and their work will become the cover of the 2026 festival (poster, catalog, flyer etc.). 

 

1. Submissions (1. May to 30. June 2026)
2. Jury gets access to the submissions and selects 20 winning projects by the end of July
3. Announcement and contact to all submitted artists (beginning of August).
4. Public announcement of the 20 winning projects via our web and social media channels (beginning of September 2026).