Eidolon Grant for Vernacular Photography

The eidolon Grant is an international programme that is presented annually to artists, academics, professionals, researchers, collectors and vernacular photography enthusiasts whose past work and proposed project is centred around the image heritage of everyday photography.

The eidolon Grant aims to identify phenomena, collections, histories, practices, and trends within vernacular photography with the aim of offering new interpretations and analyses.

Themes

• Family albums, past and present.
• Collective histories and memories through the lens of vernacular photography.
• The questions of archiving past and present vernacular imagery.
• The aesthetic quality and social or psychological significance of photography in the age of social media.
• The networked attributes of online images.
• Contemporary amateur photographic practices.
• The representation of marginalised groups through vernacular photography.
• Vernacular photography appropriation and collection building as contemporary art.
• The development of the photographic apparatus and its significance in everyday culture.

Categories

• Category 1: Text, essays, book ideas
  • The eidolon Grant aims to promote the recognition of vernacular photography and everyday imaging, and their relationship to ways of seeing. They seek to encourage the writing of texts that explore everyday imaging’s interesting aspects, and illuminate unfamiliar corners of this visual history that they all know and recreate daily.
  • The winners of the Eidolon Grant will be authors who can reach a wide audience with their enjoyable and informative text – be it by amusing or educating, delighting or provoking. They look for texts that highlight new aspects of the significance of everyday imaging and are challenging habitual thinking about vernacular imagery and that emphasise society’s relationship with the camera.
  • The grant winners’ long-form essays, translations, and article series will be published in the on-line Eidolon Journal. The Eidolon Grant will provide the necessary funds and honorary fee for the author/translator to realise their ideas. (Please take note: in the case of translations, be sure to include the rights clearance in the budget.) After the Grant has been awarded, the final publication dates will be decided in cooperation with the authors.
• Category 2: Enhancing everyday photography collections and archives in various forms
  • Analogue vernacular photography is being lost to the heritage because, as yet, they have no systemic means of their preservation. Eidolon represents an opportunity to interpret everyday images of the past at a moment when the question of what is significant about contemporary social imaging arises. They believe that the past is interpreted through the image practices of the present.
  • The Eidolon Grant aims to provide artists, academics, enthusiasts and professionals working with vernacular photography the resources to pursue their creative vision. In this category, they seek non-textual project ideas that, with Eidolon’s assistance, can evolve into exhibitions, educational events, or media-specific (art) works exploring the wide-ranged phenomena of everyday imaging.
  • They want to give previously unhighlighted photographs the opportunity to shine through various interpretive gestures. They invite proposals for short documentaries, video essays, multimedia artworks, collaborative online projects, as well as initiatives for research groups, exhibitions, masterclasses, and other educational events that fulfil the aforementioned thematic or aesthetic requirements of Eidolon’s institutional mission.

Funding Information

• Category 1: Text, essays, book ideas
  • Amount to be distributed in this category: 7000 EURO.
• Category 2: Enhancing everyday photography collections and archives in various forms
  • Amount to be distributed in this category: 18.000 EURO.

Rules

• They welcome individual and group applications.
• They choose the number of the Grant winners based on the applications received.
• The amount of the grant can be freely spent on the implementers’ fees, travel expenses, preparation and production costs, and the payment of the involved partners.
• Any incomplete application, or any received after the deadline, will not be taken into consideration. By submitting your application, you agree to share its content with the members of the jury and, in the case of a winning application, to use its visual elements in the announcement of the results and in subsequent social media posts.

For more information, visit eidolon.