Vantage Point Sharjah: Sharjah Art Foundation announces open call for annual photography exhibition

Submissions will be accepted until July 3 and the exhibition will take place in September

A visitor at Vantage Point Sharjah 7 in Al Muraijah Square, Sharjah. Reem Mohammed / The National

Sharjah Art Foundation is accepting submissions for its annual photography exhibition Vantage Point Sharjah, now in its ninth year.

The open call welcomes established and emerging photographers whose works belong to one of the following categories: photojournalism and documentary, conceptual, experimental and staged photography.

Photographers can submit up to six photographs with each application and must provide descriptions of the works and a biography.

Submissions will be accepted until Saturday, July 3, after which a jury of photographers will begin the selection process for the Vantage Point Sharjah 9 exhibition in September.

Among the jury members is Moroccan photographer M'hammed Kilito, whose portrait series Among You was shown at Vantage Point Sharjah in 2019, and Syrian photographer and architect Sham Enbashi, who was part of the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship (Seaf) in Abu Dhabi in 2016. Emirati photographers Ammar Al Attar and Alia Al Shamsi are also members.

The jury will select a winner for each category who will be awarded $1,500.

Over the years, Vantage Point Sharjah has broadened its open call geographically and thematically. In 2019, it began accepting applicants outside the GCC and allowed works across various themes and styles. Last year, more than 30 photographers from 20 countries took part.

Its first exhibition in 2013 was developed through submissions from photographers based in the UAE, with successive years themed around self-portraiture, performance, architecture and urban landscape.

Vantage Point Sharjah 9 is scheduled to take place at Al Hamriyah Studios, an off-site location for Sharjah Art Foundation inaugurated in 2017, on Saturday, September 18.

More details on submitting work can be found at sharjahart.org