Open call for a photography project at Cortona On The Move 2025

Open call for the selection of a photographer for the creation and production of a photography exhibition project for the Cortona On The Move 2025 festival

1. Purpose of the call

The Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics (IEB), together with the organizers of the international photography festival Cortona On The Move 2025, creates an open call for the selection of a photographer in charge of creating a photography exhibition project for the festival, which is held from July 17 to November 2, 2025 in Cortona, Italy.

2. Description and objective of the project

The IEB is an organization of the Government of the Balearic Islands dedicated to the promotion of the language and culture of the archipelago. Through its area of ​​culture, its strategic objective is to consolidate the Balearic Islands as a structured cultural market, in addition to promoting the external projection of music, performing arts, literature and visual arts from this territory.

In order to promote and give visibility to artistic creation in the field of visual arts in the Balearic Islands, the IEB participates in the international photography festival Cortona On The Move 2025 with a solo exhibition by a photographer from the Balearic Islands.

The international photography festival Cortona On The Move (https://www.cortonaonthemove.com) has been held since 2011 in the Tuscan town of Cortona, in the province of Arezzo. A protagonist of photographic production at an international level, the festival is a reference for photographers, curators, authors, critics, as well as for the public.

Under the direction of Veronica Nicolardi and the artistic direction of Paolo Woods, the festival makes documentary narrative the center of its interest and focuses on contemporary and socially relevant topics.

At a time in history when photography is the most universal means to narrate the world in which we live, the festival aims to make it accessible and understandable to the general public and turn it into an engine of culture, exchange and growth. Every year, Cortona On The Move carries out research on the evolution of photographic language and increasingly privileges the production and realization of original and unpublished content.

In the 2025 edition, the festival celebrates its 15th anniversary. On the occasion of this commemoration, the festival wants to commission a Balearic photographer with the creation and production of a photographic project, under the curatorship of Paolo Woods, artistic director of the festival.

The proposal is to create a new, original and unreleased project, related to the thematic focus proposed by the festival for the 2025 edition, which has not yet been made public.

3. Evaluation committee

The evaluation committee is composed of

- Veronica Nicolardi, director of the Cortona On The Move festival;

- Paolo Woods, chief curator of the festival;

- Karen Müller, project manager at the IEB; and

- Llorenç Perelló, director of the IEB.

4. Selection process

The selection process for the photographer chosen to carry out the project is proposed in two phases:

a) First phase

Photographers who wish to participate in the selection process present a representative portfolio of their photographic work and/or projects.

Paolo Woods, artistic director of the festival, and Kublaiklan, photography curator of the festival, pre-select three finalist candidates, who are asked to develop a brief proposal for a photographic project related to the 2025 theme (previously communicated to the shortlisted photographers).

The evaluation committee approves the pre-selection of the three finalist candidates.

b) Second phase

Artistic director Paolo Woods and IEB project manager Karen Müller hold a face-to-face interview in Palma, Mallorca, with the three shortlisted candidates.

From the three proposals presented, they select the one that best fits the proposed theme and the planned exhibition schedule.

The evaluation committee approves the selection of the winning proposal.

5. Evaluation criteria

In the first phase, the criteria that will guide the selection of the three shortlisted photographers are:

- the quality and artistic interest of the projects presented in their portfolio.

In the second phase, the criteria that will guide the selection of the final project are:

- adequacy to the proposed thematic focus,

- fit within the artistic programming of the event.

6. Recipients

The call is aimed at photographers born in the Balearic Islands or residing in the archipelago.

Creators selected in previous calls cannot participate in the 2025 edition.

7. Budget and technical coordination

The budget for the exhibition project at the Cortona On The Move festival is €18,500.

The management and organization tasks of the exhibition are the responsibility of the IEB and the Cortona On The Move festival and include photographer's fees; curatorship; production; assembly and disassembly; conditioning of the exhibition space; communication and dissemination; travel, accommodation and accreditation of the photographer author of the project.

8. Project development

Once the photographer in charge of the project has been selected, he or she will coordinate closely with the curator Paolo Wood and the festival management for the scheduling and creation and production of the project.

The creation must be completed and all images and texts must have been sent to the festival team by April 15, 2025. Production of the work will begin in June. The exhibition will open on July 17.

9. Fees

The fees for the selected visual artist or photographer amount to €3,500 (taxes included), which the IEB will pay to the author of the winning project upon presentation of an invoice.

10. Registration for the selection process

To register for the selection process planned for the first phase, the photographer's portfolio must be sent to opencall@iebalearics.org.

The files must be in PDF format and in low resolution.

In the subject of the email, indicate “Open call Cortona On The Move 2025”.

The dossier must be identified with the name of the photographer.

The IEB will confirm receipt of the project.

11. Deadline for receipt of portfolios

The deadline for receipt of portfolios ends on Friday, January 31, 2025, at 11:00 p.m.

Any request for participation sent after the deadline will not be taken into account.

12. Resolution

Regarding the first selection phase, the three photographers will receive an email confirming their pre-selection by the IEB (until, at the latest, February 6, 2025), to which they must respond confirming their availability to hold the interview scheduled for the second phase.

Regarding the second selection phase, the author of the selected project will receive an email confirming their selection by the IEB, to which they must respond confirming their availability to carry out the project.

In both the first and second selection phases, the IEB will inform all participants of the final result by email and will publish the result of the final selection on its website.

The IEB reserves the right to declare the call void if the evaluation committee decides that the projects presented do not meet the selection criteria described or do not fit into the planned programming.

More information

If you have any questions or queries, you can contact Karen Müller, visual arts technician at the IEB (kamueller@ieb.caib.es; 971 17 89 96).