CALL FOR PHOTOS
“URBAN SPACES AND PUBLIC LIFE”
Introduction
The Market Photo Workshop in partnership with the Centre on African Public Spaces and the University of Johannesburg is pleased to extend an invitation to photographers from across the African continent to submit their work in response to a special and juried call around African public spaces. Photographers with a keen interest in public spaces and photography are invited to submit a selection of works that respond to public spaces in communities across Africa. Ten successful applicants will take part in a three-month photography mentorship through the Market Photo Workshop, followed by a public exhibition in Johannesburg as well as having their works showcased on Centre on African Public Spaces website and the Market Photo Workshop’s Photoformafrica website.
The project seeks to promote new photography works of social responsibility, activism and ethical investigation by African photographers.
The top three overall participants of the project will receive cash prizes.
Submissions close on Friday 10 November 2023.
About the Centre on African Public Spaces
The Centre on African Public Spaces (CAPS) is a regional knowledge-sharing platform on public spaces founded by the City of Johannesburg in collaboration with the UN-Habitat Global Public Space Programme and GIZ Inclusive Violence and Crime Prevention Programme. CAPS seeks to ensure access to home-grown solutions for designing, building, activating and sustaining safe, inclusive, accessible multifunctional public spaces across the African continent. It also looks to interrogate and disseminate quality good practices, research and innovative approaches with a view to influence African cities to recognise the value and importance of public spaces.
The call
The aim of the call is to showcase works that speak to public space experience that is unique to a number of specific African contexts. The project intends to initiate a discussion that highlights the complexity of perceptions of place, space and belonging particularly from an African perspective. There are many different questions and positions with regard to public spaces and diverging views which often remain hidden. In South Africa, issues of space are entangled with its racial and apartheid history and in Africa broadly with legacies of colonisation, conjectures of ownership, belonging and identity. These legacies embedded in spaces continue to reproduce an oppressed and unequal society in both urban and rural contexts.
The Centre on African Public Spaces through The Market Photo Workshop seeks to use photography to unpack and engage dynamics embedded in these spaces to develop a richer understanding of African public spaces. This project presents an opportunity for photographers and those with a keen interest in public spaces to reflect on their significance for community building, their historical value as well directly engaging in the process of developing an African understanding and definition of what makes a public space. Entrants will be encouraged to think critically, developing a strong conceptual foundation of their “visual arguments” and perspectives, grappling with existing questions and further inspiring new ways of seeing African public spaces.
Photographers should submit work that is not only visually stimulating but further presents differing perspectives and interests, a testament to the social complexities and dynamics within African public spaces.
The images can deepen our understanding of how any of the following conditions are captured and lived in public spaces:
- Pain and strength
- History and memory
- Afterlives of race and colonialism
- Safety and fear
- Cities of women and children
- Rewriting our narrative
- Our values
- The ways we live
- Becoming
- Spiritual roots
- Climate in/justice
- Hope and aspiration
- African universality
Bodies of work that speak to such themes could also help to answer questions around African public spaces such as:
- What value do people attach to public spaces in your city or in Africa in general?
- How does public space and its making shape the lifestyle of the people who move through them?
- Are the values, identity, histories of people and our present condition represented in public spaces?
- What are the relationships between public space, safety and Gender-Based Violence?
- Is the public built environment approaching issues of climate change?
Who should Apply and How to Apply
- Photographers from across the African continent may submit their work for consideration.
- You may submit a new or existing body or work for consideration.
- Entrants to submit a written motivation for applying and why they should be considered. This motivation should not be longer than one page.
- The motivation should include a paragraph about the work that you are submitting and why you chose it.
- Applicants should demonstrate knowledge of the role and significance of photography within society and the ability to use photography as a tool to transmit information as a force for change.
- Applicants should submit 10-15 photographs (Jpeg files, folder not more than 5MB). The portfolio must be a single body of work.
- Submitted images need to be clearly marked with a title, year of creation, your name and resolution spec of the original image.
- Please include your biography and CV in your submission two recent, high-resolution photographs of yourself with contact details and social media handles
- A declaration of ownership of your work and images and where applicable, an indication of release forms / participation agreements with person depicted in the work must be included if necessary.
- The work (all images) must be an original work which do not violate the rights of a third party or any copyright.
User rights:
- Entrants will retain copyright of their submitted images. The Centre on African Public Spaces and the Market Photo workshop shall in all instances, credit the copyright holder wherever practicable and applicable.
- Participants will be required to provide their first and last name and social media handles along with their motivation letter.
- By submitting images, the participants grant The Centre on African Public Spaces and The Market Photo Workshop the right in consultation with the participants to use any of the images or the complete body of work for future exhibitions, re-exhibition and promotional material (press, marketing materials, including social media and website, to promote and publicise the project) or for any learning and teaching purposes related to this call.
PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO THE PROJECT IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO GRANT THESE RIGHTS.
Liability
Any personal information of entrants will only be used and, where necessary (credits).
You can withdraw your consent and photograph by contacting The Centre on African Public Spaces and the Market Photo Workshop. Your image(s) will then be removed from the project archives and files. You will not be able to withdraw your photograph(s) once selected.
Accepting the rules
By submitting your photographs, you are deemed to have accepted the above project criteria and to have granted the rights to the Centre on African Public Spaces and The Market Photo workshop to use the images in accordance with the above statements.
THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS PREVAIL IN THE EVENT OF ANY CONFLICT OR INCONSISTENCY WITH ANY OTHER COMMUNICATIONS, INCLUDING ADVERTISING OR PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS.
Disclaimer
The Centre on African Public Spaces and The Market Photo Workshop reserve the right to define the particular criteria for choosing the most compelling submission and to select the ten successful applicants.
Deadline & Outcome Announcement
A panel of judges appointed by The Market Photo Workshop will participate in the selection process; choosing applications that have merit, who will be able to fully participate in the project, and that they are likely to derive lasting benefits from the project. The ten successful applicants will be notified by Friday 17 November 2023.
First prize
– Participate in a three month photography mentorship through the Market Photo Workshop.
– Participate in a public physical exhibition and an online exhibition at https://photoformafrica.com/ and the Centre on African Public Spaces website.
– Receive US$1,000 Cash Prize.
Second prize
– Participate in a three month photography mentorship through the Market Photo Workshop.
– Participate in a public physical exhibition and an online exhibition at https://photoformafrica.com/ and the Centre on African Public Spaces website.
– Receive US$500 Cash Prize.
Third prize
– Participate in a three month photography mentorship through the Market Photo Workshop.
– Participate in a public physical exhibition and an online exhibition at https://photoformafrica.com/ and the Centre on African Public Spaces website.
– Receive US$200 Cash Prize.
Deadline and submissions
Submissions close on Friday 10 November 2023.
All applications must be submitted by email to
Bekie Ntini
bekien@marketphotoworkshop.co.za
And
Ayanda Roji
