DRIFTOPEN
WHAT: group exhibition + catalogue
WHO: no restrictions
WHEN: End of June 2026 ( TBC )
WHERE: Firenze, Italy ( TBC )
SUBMISSION FEE: single image $10 / series $25
DEADLINE: 20 May 2026
ANNOUNCEMENT SELECTED WORKS: 1st June
Photographers, artists, authors and designers from anywhere in the world can submit their work, without any limitations on age, approach, or technique.
Whether it is a single photo, a series, a drawing, an essay, poetry or mixed-media, anything that can be printed on paper is acceptable for submission. We accept also video works, anything that can be show on a monitor or a projection.
A single submission consists of one photograph or one video. A series consists of up to 15 images. For series submissions, the curators reserve the right to make a partial selection.
The submission link will be provided upon completion of payment.
OVERVIEW
DRIFT
We live in a culture that produces images faster than we can hold them. The present keeps moving forward while memory falls behind. This is not only a technological change. It is a deeper fracture in how we experience time, history, and ourselves.
Memory is no longer stable in archives or photo albums. It circulates, degrades, mutates, and sometimes disappears before we even notice it is gone. Photography sits at the center of this condition. It should preserve. Instead, it has become one of the engines of acceleration.
DRIFT is not an invitation to nostalgia. It is not interested in reassuring reflections on the past. It asks how artists respond to a time when memory itself has come loose from its anchors, when images move too fast to settle, and when slowness has become a form of resistance.
INTENT
We are looking for practices that take memory, archives, and time seriously. Work that slows down deliberately. That fragments images or builds its own temporal systems against the speed of the world. That uses the medium not only to record reality but to question how time is being compressed around us.
We welcome both subtle and direct approaches. Documentary or experimental. The work should reflect a clear engagement with this condition, where the medium itself becomes part of the question.
This overview is intended to provide context, not to limit your artistic expression. You may choose to focus on any single aspect of these themes/keywords.
Should the curators deem it necessary, you will be asked for additional text to contextualize your submission.
1. Memory
2. Archive
3. Fragmentation
4. Slowness
5. Time
6. Accumulation
7. Disappearance
8. Resistance
9. Compression
10. Trace
MISSION
DRIFT gathers work that confronts the instability of memory in an accelerated present. Not as a lament, but as an inquiry.
Photography stands at the crossroads between the desire to preserve and the pressure to move ever faster.
By bringing together a range of practices in Firenze, we hope to build a shared reflection on how images behave in time, what slowness makes visible, and how visual work can shape what we remember when everything around us is moving too fast to leave a mark.
PLAYLIST
/SELFISH • DriftSTOYT
SELECTED PARTICIPANTS
Selected artists will be featured in the group exhibition DRIFT, to be held in Firenze, Italy in May 2026. Printing of all selected works will be handled by zerofeedback.
Artists requiring physical shipment of their work are responsible for covering shipping costs in both directions.
Each selected artist will receive one copy of the exhibition catalogue, with only the shipping costs to be covered by the artist.
Further details will be announced later.
Selected artists will be featured in the group exhibition DRIFT, to be held in Firenze, Italy in May 2026. Printing of all selected works will be handled by zerofeedback.
Artists requiring physical shipment of their work are responsible for covering shipping costs in both directions.
Each selected artist will receive one copy of the exhibition catalogue, with only the shipping costs to be covered by the artist.
Further details will be announced later.
CONTACTS
For any inquiry regarding this open call write to:
opencalls @ zrfdbck.com
For any inquiry regarding this open call write to:
opencalls @ zrfdbck.com
To ensure to keep you updated, all email addresses provided by submitters will be added to our mailing list.