VAiF26 — Photobook Open Call 2026

The Visual Arts International Festival (VAiF) is an annual festival of contemporary visual arts held in Thessaloniki, Greece, organised by the esp+ photography school. The 2026 Photobook Open Call sits alongside the festival's Photography Portfolio call as a dedicated track for photography in book form — accepting self-published photobooks, publisher collaborations, zines, and dummy books with no thematic restrictions.

Selected works are exhibited as a group at VAiF26 in Thessaloniki in November 2026 and enter the VAiF Photobook Collection for future non-commercial presentations. Entries are free and open to photographers, artists, publishers, and creative studios aged 18 or over worldwide. The jury values projects with clear visual identity, coherent narrative structure, and contemporary photographic language.

The 2026 jury combines curatorial, academic, and design voices: Elena Karathanasi (museologist, photographer, and graphic designer at the Teloglion Foundation), Alexandra Moschovi (photography professor and art historian, University of Sunderland), and Alexander Supartono (art historian and curator specialising in Southeast Asian contemporary art, Edinburgh Napier University).

Submission is via an online form with a PDF of the full book or complete layout, a flip-through video up to two minutes hosted on YouTube/Vimeo or shared via WeTransfer with at least 15 days' validity, and photographs of cover, spreads, and details. Multiple submissions are allowed with one form per book. Selected artists send one physical copy for exhibition; copies are not returned and remain in the VAiF Photobook Collection. Deadline: Sunday, May 31, 2026 at 23:59 GMT.