Open Call for Theory C/O Berlin Talent Award

Apr. 9, 2024

The C/O Berlin Talent Award recognizes outstanding work in both photographic practice and theory. Awarded annually in the disciplines of artistic photography and photo-theoretical writing, both Artist and Theorist are granted a total sum of €10,000 (€7,000 for the Artist/ €3,000 for the Theorist). A solo exhibition will be held in the C/O Berlin with the award-winning artist and a publication with Spector Books to accompany it, for which the theorist will be tasked to write an essay on the selected artwork and to conduct an interview with the artist.

New Documentary Strategies being the central theme of the C/O Berlin Talent Award, the aim is to support and encourage a critical approach to traditional documentary narratives, exploring the idea of photography functioning as a means of documentation, how our trust in the medium has evolved considering the use of “networked images” as well as new narrative strategies that are being developed to understand and remember the events taking place in the world around us.

The Artist category (which has already been awarded) will address the rootedness of language and sign systems in colonial power structures. Through combining past and present, the project will show how Africa’s colonial oppression is still reflected today in the use of “Western” communication systems.

Photo theorists can apply online with two already published text samples that deal with current photography in a broader context, which thematically relate to the winning project. C/O Berlin will select a winner from the submissions in collaboration with experts from the field of photo-theoretical and photo-historical journalism.