CALL FOR WORKS
We welcome submissions presenting Photography, artistic and practice-based research projects that engage with the following themes, although proposals are not limited to these topics:
- Photography, wandering and the exploration of place: drifting through landscapes, and other forms of errant movement through territory;
- The photographic essay as a form of thinking: narrative sequences and montage in photobooks and visual essays;
- Error as method: experimentation, misstep, and productive failure in photographic practice;
- Photography between analogue and digital: movement across devices, surfaces, formats, materials/materialities, archives, and networked spaces;
- Deviations from photographic conventions: iconoclastic, anti-canonical practices and alternative image-making;
- Walking as photographic practice: movement, preception, printing and image-making;
Who can apply?
We welcome submissions from photographers, artists and other practitioners working with photographic images, researchers and students, both from FilmEU Alliance member institutions and other higher education and research institutions.
Presentation format:
We accept proposals for short presentations limited to 20 minutes; and long presentations limited to two hours (minimum 40 minutes).
Short presentations will be organized into panels and are intended for displaying and discussing projects.
Long presentations are intended for sharing sessions involving hands-on practice.
We encourage exploratory approaches from individuals and collectives. Presentations may include visual or audiovisual works, or performative actions, and can be delivered in English or Portuguese.
How to apply:
To submit a proposal, the submitter must be registered as a user of the Research Catalogue (RC) with a full account. This will enable you to access both the Application Form and create an Exposition to display your work. Please make sure to register on the RC as soon as possible to ensure that your registration can be processed in time.
Registering a full RC Account is free.
For more information about the RC registration process, you may consult the video tutorial,
Once you have a full account, you can log in and start working on your application (link para PDF instruções) by going to your profile page.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Title (max. 200 characters).
Abstract for Conference program (max. 2000 characters).
Short biographies of presenters (max. 600 characters).
Image for the Conference program.
Information on the presentation format (max. 1000 characters).
Spatial and/or technical requirements (max. 500 characters).
Previous iterations of the research (max.1000 characters)
RC Exposition: with the application form, we will also ask you to attach an RC Exposition of your project, in which you should provide more detailed information about the project you are submitting, including background, methodologies, processes, references, etc. — anything the authors consider relevant to ensuring that peer reviewers can understand the work. The RC platform ensures that this information can be conveyed through means other than written text; you may submit images, videos, audio, or include external links. The attached exposition should be made specifically for this submission purpose, and should not be previously published. As a guideline, the exposition should not demand more than 15 minutes to read/navigate. We recommend making yourself familiar with the RC requirements in advance of the submission deadline. See the quickstart guide for creating your first RC exposition.
N.B. Please do not "submit for review" the exposition to any of the RC portals (JAR, HUB, etc.) or self-publish it. You can attach the exposition to your application using the application form itself. Attaching it to the form will ensure that the reviewers will be able to view and assess the content once your application is made available to them. Tip: you can attach the exposition using the title, not the url/link.
Deadline for submissions: 15 July 2026
Applications will be reviewed by 31 July 2026
Evaluation criteria
All submissions to the ERRAR Conference will undergo peer review. Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
Relevance to the conference theme
The proposal should engage with photography in a strict or expanded sense and demonstrate a meaningful connection to the conference theme, including wandering, movement, error, experimentation, deviation, photographic essays, analogue–digital transitions, walking as photographic practice.
Formal, aesthetic and conceptual quality
Reviewers will assess the formal and aesthetic merit, conceptual coherence, and critical contribution of the project, including its capacity to challenge or expand established understandings of photography. As a conference dedicated to photography, artistic and practice-based research, proposals should articulate the processual dimension of the project/research.
Clarity and quality of presentation
Reviewers will consider the coherence of the proposal, the quality of the visual and written materials, and compliance with the submission guidelines.
Review Process
Reviewers will provide an overall recommendation and written feedback based on the criteria above. Final selection decisions will be made by the Conference Committee, taking into account both peer-review evaluations and the overall balance of the conference programme.
Authorship
We expect all submissions to be original work created by the proposing authors. An "original work" refers to an independent creation that originates from its author and has not been copied from pre-existing material. It demonstrates a person's or team's unique individuality and personal effort, rather than being based on another person's intellectual property.