Copenaghen Photo Festival Open Call 2025
Copenhagen Photo Festival 2026 is showcasing an artistically and conceptually ambitious programme that celebrates creativity and experimentation within photography and lens-based art, and aims to build bridges between fine art and documentary photography.
The festival takes place in the center of Copenhagen as well as at collaborating galleries, museums and cultural institutions in Copenhagen and southern Sweden. Throughout the festival, photography is on the agenda through exhibitions, networking programs, workshops, talks, photobook market and more. In 2026 we will consolidate our presence at The Royal Danish Theatre as our new festival centre in the city center of Copenhagen.
With the theme ‘Forestillinger | Scenarios’ for the 2026 open call for solo artists we invite artists and photographers to engage with unknown agendas and unpredictable terrains. To find new paths and give space to playfulness and imperfection – where serendipity and new narratives can emerge. This is crucial in a world where we are daily confronted with war, inequality, hidden agendas, and a looming climate crisis. Here, ‘scenarios’ is not an escape – but a necessary place to begin.
Overarching theme: ‘Forestillinger | Scenarios’
How could Jules Verne describe the depths of the ocean without ever setting foot in a submarine? How can we dream of things we have never seen, or fear what we do not even know? Why does art exist, and why are we drawn to great drama?
The ability to imagine something – a better world, a different reality – is a deeply human driving force. It can spark political change, sway crowds for better or worse, or unfold in outstanding works of art. It can lead to tempestuous love affairs or to burning jealousy. With the theme “Forestillinger | Scenarios” we want to highlight our abilities to create worlds and new realities through images and narratives – staged or not.
In Danish, the word “forestillinger” refers both to the performative – the theatre’s stage where dramas are brought to life – and to the emotional and image-making: our ability to fantasise, to dream ourselves elsewhere, and to step into the lives of others. The equivalent English word ‘scenarios’ also encapsulate the theatrical perspective as well as the power of creating images and narratives.
Scenarios can paint utopian visions or pitch-black nightmares. They can paralyse us or open up new paths through unknown, rugged landscapes. Scenarios as playful stagings or imaginings can be wonderful, unrealistic, limited, disturbing, rigid – or they can break boundaries and defy logic.
Imagining a world without scenarios or ‘what ifs?’ – without the ability to create images or narratives – is nearly impossible. It is the very foundation of understanding and connecting with others. To mirror ourselves, to unfold, and to show empathy.
With Forestillinger | Scenarios as the overarching theme for Copenhagen Photo Festival 2026, we invite you to explore how this creative force unfolds through photography – both as image and as gaze. Photography can document the visible or give shape to the yet unseen or the unthinkable. It can create presence, point forward, dream, confront, or distort.
We invite artists and photographers to engage with unknown agendas and unpredictable terrains. To find new paths and give space to playfulness and imperfection – where serendipity and new narratives can emerge. This is crucial in a world where we are daily confronted with war, inequality, hidden agendas, and a looming climate crisis. Here, ‘scenarios’ is not an escape – but a necessary place to begin.
Award: The winners of the call wins a solo exhibition during next year’s festival in June 2026.
Deadline: 7th September 2025
