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Before being an object to be narrated, adolescence is a demand for space — where those who inhabit it can express themselves without being translated. In that space, the adult gaze stops being a tool and becomes a filter: it explains, organizes, justifies, rearranges.

Yet adolescence is also what gets lost when we try to explain it: it doesn’t ask to be legible, nor to be translated.

It asks instead to be listened to — to be looked at with serious attention, without judgment. And it often sounds like friction, fear, inconsistencies: conflicts and codes that shift in the very moment they are spoken.
With this open call, Artphilein takes the uncomfortable position of trying, with care and commitment, to listen to those who are living it firsthand.

The aim is to make room for a portrait built with proximity, urgency, and responsibility — avoiding speaking over, interpreting, or domesticating.

We are looking for projects that are born inside the present and carry its tensions: life in an ecosystem of screens and gazes, negotiations with identity, the weight of the outside world — political, collective, unstable. Leaving aside the rhetoric of the transition narrative, what emerges if we stop telling adolescence from the outside?


Each applicant may submit one project. Please upload 10–20 images compiled into one single PDF (maximum 25 MB). If applicable, include any project texts (captions, statements, written elements) within the same PDF. Before submitting, please read the Contest Rules carefully.

One winner will be selected. The winner will be awarded a fully produced solo exhibition at the Artphilein Library (Autumn 2026), along with publication of a selection of images (and texts) in the Artphilein Dossier, produced for the exhibition and published by Artphilein Editions (Autumn 2026). The winner will also receive a cash prize of CHF 1,000. A selection of images by the other nine finalists may be presented as a projection during the exhibition opening.

Submissions will be reviewed by a jury composed of the Artphilein curatorial team and the Director.


Timeline

Submission deadline: 15.04.2026
Shortlist announcement: 24.04.2026
Winner announcement: 30.04.2026

APPLY HERE