FORMAT International Photography Festival announces open call for March 2027 Biennale

FORMAT International Photography Festival, the UK’s leading international contemporary festival of photography and related media, has announced the Open Call for its next edition in 2027, which will be centred around the theme of ‘PLAY’.

The 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 (https://site.picter.com/format-27-open-call). A panel of international experts, together with the FORMAT Curatorial team, will review the submissions and select up to five projects to be exhibited at FORMAT27 in Derby between 11 March and 11 April 2027.

At a time when play is increasingly mediated through digital platforms, constrained by political systems, commercialised by algorithms and transformed by AI, FORMAT27 asks what it means to reclaim play as a creative, social and political act.

Selected entries will be given the opportunity to exhibit at FORMAT27 and a chance to  receive one of the festival awards. All submissions will be reviewed by the FORMAT  

Curatorial team and up to 250 shortlisted submissions will receive the opportunity to be  seen by our panel of industry experts.

Invited from around the world, the FORMAT27 Advisory Jury includes:

• Jean-Christophe Godet (Guernsey/France), Glaz Festival and Guernsey Photography Festival Artistic Director
• Jenni Grainger (UK), Director of Photofusion, London
• Yining He (China/UK), Curator and Researcher in visual arts
• Caroline Hunter (UK), Picture Editor at The Guardian
• Alex Kahl (UK), Stories & Curation Online Editor at WePresent
• João Kulcsár (Brazil), Director and Founder of the São Paulo Photo Festival and the Paranapiacaba Photo Festival
• Wang Peiquan (China), Director of Lishui Photography Festival and Director of China Photographers Association
• Diane Smyth (UK), Editor of the British Journal of Photography and Photoworks Annual.

As Eleanor Thornley, QUAD CEO explains, “At QUAD and FORMAT we are passionate about access to the arts and our mission to bring the best in Photography, digital art and film to the people of Derby and Beyond.  The FORMAT Open Call opportunity is a brilliant way of opening our doors to artists, and for us to seek out exciting voices, perspectives and practice that we may not otherwise encounter. We invite you all to PLAY with us and I can’t wait to see this year’s submissions.”

FORMAT27 incorporates many of Derby’s most beautiful buildings and key landmarks including: QUAD, University of Derby, Derby Museum & Art Gallery alongside activating disused city spaces and buildings as temporary galleries. FORMAT’s friends and partners collaborate to offer a fringe of related activities across Derby, as well as satellite venues in Leicester, Nottingham and beyond.

FORMAT International Photography Festival is curated, organised and led by QUAD, with strategic partnership support from the University of Derby. QUAD is funded and supported by Arts Council England, BFI, and Derby City Council, with additional support from a range of national and international partners.