With TRIENNIAL EXPANDED, a platform for the local Hamburg photography scene is created within the framework of the 8th Triennale of Photography Hamburg. The aim of the program is to make the Hamburg photography scene visible in all its diversity for the local, but also the national and international audience and to create a temporary space for exchange and encounter with photography in and from Hamburg. Triennale Expanded starts with the Festival Weekend from 2 to 6 June 2022.

The Triennial of Photography Hamburg has taken place every three years since 1999 in cooperation with Hamburg's major museums, exhibition houses, cultural institutions, galleries, and other organizers, and is an important photo event with international appeal throughout Germany. The Triennial highlights current trends in photography and brings together a large number of photo exhibitions under a common theme.

The 8th edition of the Triennial of Photography Hamburg will be framed around the concept of Currency, inviting reflection on the contemporary power of the photograph to relay and relate meaning across distance. Rerouting this economic term to art and visual culture guides a multipart engagement with photography and its relationship to value-making, canon-making, access, circulation, and knowledge production.

In its primary meaning, currency is an economic term for a system of monetary units. Applied to discourses of visual culture, it is associated with “cultural capital.” In their interpretation of the theme, the curators refer to Susan Sontag, who posited that a “capitalist society requires a culture based on images.” It needs to furnish a huge amount of it to stimulate consumption. The camera defines a reality that is both “a spectacle (for masses)” and “an object of surveillance (for rulers).”

The curators of the Triennial extend the concept of currency to visual culture more broadly and will present photography alongside films, videos and installations. Currency is intended to explore canon-making, classification and circulation. Photography will be examined for its influence on trade and exchange, its importance for regulation and standardization, but also, for its ability to generate and support resistance.

The artistic director Koyo Kouoh and together with the curatorial team and the team of the Triennial of Photography Hamburg will be selecting the projects for TRIENNIAL EXPANDED.

The Open Call for independent photographers, artists and collectives and the Participation Registration for art spaces and galleries are open for Hamburg-based individuals and spaces only.

• OPEN CALL (for independent artists, curators and collectives) Closed! No more entries possible in this category

• REGISTRATION (for art spaces and galleries) open until January 15th, 2022

Obligatory (Describe your exhibition project. Max. 2000 characters. Feel free to hand in your project description in German or in English)

Hamburg galleries and art venues that deal with the medium of photography during the Triennial Festival period (2 – 6 June 2022) and beyond are invited to participate with their own program in the official festival program. The participating venues will be included in the public relations work of the 8th Triennial and presented in the Triennial Guide (official Festival Catalogue).

Submissions to TRIENNIAL EXPANDED (Open Call and Registration) are free. But requirement for submission in both categories is that artists & spaces have their main working and living residence in Hamburg, Germany.