The eidolon grant will be back in 2025.
See the first eidolon grant's winners via this link and the first year's grant announcement below.
eidolon centre for Everyday Photography is calling artists, academics, enthusiasts, and professionals, who have a passion and serious interest in vernacular photography and everyday imaging.
The eidolon grant will be back in 2025.
See the first eidolon grant's winners via this link and the first year's grant announcement below.
eidolon centre for Everyday Photography is calling artists, academics, enthusiasts, and professionals, who have a passion and serious interest in vernacular photography and everyday imaging.
eidolon is delighted to announce the launch of its first international grant for projects which explore, promote and conserve vernacular photography.
The deadline for submission is August 30, and applications can be made under two categories, with a total of 25.000 eur to be distributed.
The eidolon Grant is an international programme that is presented annually to artists, academics, professionals, researchers, collectors and vernacular photography enthusiasts whose past work and proposed project is centred around the image heritage of everyday photography.
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The eidolon Grant aims to identify phenomena, collections, histories, practices, and trends within vernacular photography with the aim of offering new interpretations and analyses. Thematising both photographic heritages and contemporary photographic practices is eidolon’s mission and we invite you to join us in this important exploration.
Each chosen project will contribute to the enrichment of our institution's program in the coming year.
Thematic suggestions
Family albums, past and present
Collective histories and memories through the lens of vernacular photography
The questions of archiving past and present vernacular imagery
The aesthetic quality and social or psychological significance of photography in the age of social media
The networked attributes of online images
Contemporary amateur photographic practices
The representation of marginalised groups through vernacular photography
Vernacular photography appropriation and collection building as contemporary art
The development of the photographic apparatus and its significance in everyday culture
Family albums, past and present
Collective histories and memories through the lens of vernacular photography
The questions of archiving past and present vernacular imagery
The aesthetic quality and social or psychological significance of photography in the age of social media
The networked attributes of online images
Contemporary amateur photographic practices
The representation of marginalised groups through vernacular photography
Vernacular photography appropriation and collection building as contemporary art
The development of the photographic apparatus and its significance in everyday culture
Category 1 —
Text, essays, book ideas
English-speaking writers of any nationality may apply for up to 7000 eur to support the preparation of:
- article series
- English translations of important publications on everyday imaging in other languages
- original books (we are interested in books that have photographic illustrations but currently we are not seeking photobook proposals.)
The grant winners’ long-form essays, translations, and article series will be published in the on-line Eidolon Journal. The Eidolon Grant will provide the necessary funds and honorary fee for the author/translator to realise their ideas. (Please take note: in the case of translations, be sure to include the rights clearance in the budget.) After the Grant has been awarded, the final publication dates will be decided in cooperation with the authors, but we aim to start publishing the short-form winning materials no later than January 2025.
If you apply with an original book idea, please send us an abstract no longer than 10.000 characters highlighting the focus and main narrative of the idea in question, and a brief argument about the significance of the chosen topic.
Please attach a short CV and two previously published texts written by you.
Please include a brief budget demonstrating how the grant would facilitate the realisation of your project. Please take note: in the case of translations, be sure to include the rights clearance in the budget.
Category 2 —
Enhancing everyday photography collections and archives in various forms
The Eidolon Grant aims to provide artists, academics, enthusiasts and professionals working with vernacular photography the resources to pursue their creative vision. In this category, we seek non-textual project ideas that, with Eidolon's assistance, can evolve into exhibitions, educational events, or media-specific (art)works exploring the wide-ranged phenomena of everyday imaging.
We want to give previously unhighlighted photographs the opportunity to shine through various interpretive gestures. We invite proposals for short documentaries, video essays, multimedia artworks, collaborative online projects, as well as initiatives for research groups, exhibitions, masterclasses, and other educational events that fulfil the aforementioned thematic or aesthetic requirements of Eidolon’s institutional mission.
We would like to draw the applicants' attention to the fact that it is not possible to apply for the digitization and maintenance of an already existing collection in this category.
- digital project
- workshops or workshop series.
The grant is offered to fund the streamlining, preparation and realisation of these projects.
In the case of project proposals larger in volume, and requiring many contributors, the suggested activities may include:
- group or solo exhibition
- talk event or talk event series
- masterclass
- research group.
While the grant may facilitate the preparation of these projects, Eidolon will become a partner to find sufficient funding for the project's realisation.
Based in Budapest, Eidolon Centre for Everyday Photography is still searching for its final physical home. In case of a grant given to facilitate the preparation of an exhibition or talk event, the winner agrees that Eidolon has the right for a year to realise the exhibition or event in their own future space or find the right international partner to host the event.
If you apply with an idea that the Eidolon Grant partially covers and is in need of a bigger budget (such as: short documentary, video essay and Youtube-special, group or solo exhibition, talk event or talk event series, masterclass, research group, etc.) please send us an abstract of no longer than 10.000 characters highlighting the focus and main narrative of the idea in question, a brief argument about the significance of the chosen topic, and a draft timeline of the realisation process.
Please attach a short CV and a summary of your previously realised projects.
Please include a short budget demonstrating how the Grant would facilitate the realisation of your project.
If you intend to work with a third party (an archive, collection or institution) please include their declaration of consent in your application.
Rules &
important information
No entry fee
We welcome individual and group applications.
We choose the number of the Grant winners based on the applications received.
The amount of the grant can be freely spent on the implementers' fees, travel expenses, preparation and production costs, and the payment of the involved partners.
Any incomplete application, or any received after the deadline, will not be taken into consideration. By submitting your application, you agree to share its content with the members of the jury and, in the case of a winning application, to use its visual elements in the announcement of the results and in subsequent social media posts.
For additional inquiries regarding the Eidolon Grant, please reach out to us at info@everydayphotography.org.
Jury
Özge Calafato
is Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests lie at the intersection of photography, archives, memory and cultural identity. Her book Making the Modern Turkish Citizen: Vernacular Photography in the Early Republican Era (I.B. Tauris, 2022) explores the photographic self-representations of the urban middle classes in Turkey in the 1920s and the 1930s. Between 2014 and 2020 she worked as the Assistant Director for the Akkasah: Center for Photography at the New York University Abu Dhabi.
Mattie Colquhoun
is a writer, blogger and photographer based in the UK. They are recognised for their contributions to the work of Mark Fisher, most notably, in their debut book, Egress which came out in 2020 and explored themes of community and grief following their late lecturer’s passing. Additionally, they have transcribed and edited Fisher's Postcapitalist Desire lectures and have contributed numerous essays to reissues and translations of his works. Mattie Colquhoun’s most recent book Narcissus in Bloom: An Alternative History of the Selfie was published on Repeater Books and presents an alternative interpretation of the selfie, positioning it as a reflection of broader political discontent and a desire for self-transformation, rather than solely a postmodern pathology.
Christopher Pinney
is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Visual Culture at University College London. His publications include Camera Indicia: The Social Life of Indian Photographs (Reaktion 1997) The Coming of Photography in India (British Library, 2008), and (together with the photographer Suresh Punjabi) Artisan Camera: Studio Photography from Central India (Tara, 2013). He led the ERC funded project “PhotoDemos” which resulted in the collectively edited volume Citizens of Photography: The Camera and Political Imagination (Duke, 2023).
Joachim Schmid
is a German artist based in Berlin who is primarily known for his work focusing on vernacular photography. Schmid attended the University of Design in Schwabisch Gmund and the Berlin University of the Arts from 1976 to 1981. His career initially began by writing essays for Fotokritik, where he quickly gained recognition for his unwavering critique of established concepts in art photography with which he advocated for a comprehensive and inclusive assessment of photography as a cultural endeavour. In the late 1980s, Schmid began creating his own artworks and projects using imagery not produced in an art context. Besides many projects like The First General Collection of Used Photographs (1991) & The ABC of Popular Desire (2013), one of his most renowned works is the series titled Other People’s Photographs (2008-2011), in which he self-published ninety-six books featuring photographs sourced from online platforms such as Flickr.
Róza Tekla Szilágyi
is the director of Eidolon Centre for Everyday Photography. She lives and works in Budapest. Her main interest is the fact that everyday photography's cultural importance is often overlooked though it represents the larger part of our image heritage from the last 200 years.
Call for entries open
May 21,
2024
Submission deadline
August 30, 2024,
at 11:59 p.m.
Winners' announcement
October 10,
2024
Call for entries open
May 21,
2024
Submission deadline
August 30, 2024,
at 11:59 p.m.
Winners' announcement
