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This year is Autograph's 35th anniversary. As part of our celebrations we will be sharing three Open Call opportunities over the course of the next 12 months, each focusing on a different theme
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2023 marks 35 years since Autograph began working as a radical organisation within the visual arts. Since 1988, we have championed photography that explores issues of race, identity, representation, human rights, and social justice. This year's Open Call is part of our year-long celebrations, and over the course of the year we will be sharing three Open Call opportunities in total. Each open call will focus on a different theme.
Our first Open Call of this anniversary year took inspiration from the Autoportraits exhibition - Autograph's first major exhibition curated and organised in 1990.
Applications now closed | Find out more
Taking inspiration from Bandele ‘Tex’ Ajetunmobi, whose work is part of Autograph's collection, we are inviting submissions that draw on the theme of heritage and culture.
Applications now closed | Find out more
The theme of the third and final open call for our anniversary year is climate justice and brings us the present day, connecting to our current exhibitions Wilfred Ukpong: Niger-Delta / Future-Cosmos and Mónica Alcázar-Duarte: Digital Clouds Don't Carry Rain.
Applications now closed | Find out more
The first major exhibition curated and organised by Autograph in 1990 was Autoportraits, a seminal exhibition exploring the politics of identity and representation through self-portraiture. Autograph was forged by artists to create a space for marginalised voices to be seen and heard. The power of the autoportrait continues to be a tool of interrogation into the intricacies of self-expression and the notion of difference in contemporary society. The exhibition featured new work by artists Monika Baker, Allan deSouza, Joy Gregory (pictured here), Sunil Gupta, Lyle Ashton Harris, Mumtaz Karimjee and Roshini Kempadoo.
Our first anniversary year open call for events took inspiration from this exhibition and invited submissions that drew on the themes of identity and self-representation. The deadline for this opportunity has now passed.
Since we were founded in 1988, Autograph has collected photographic material which reflects our mission and addresses gaps in the visual representation of Britain’s cultural history and its diverse communities.
Bandele ‘Tex’ Ajetunmobi's photographs are an important historical document of social and cultural life in London’s East End from 1950-1980. They capture the camaraderie between the long-established communities in the area, as well as the recent arrivals from countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia. Most of Ajetunmobi’s work was destroyed when he died apart for some two hundred negatives that were saved by his niece Victoria Loughran and which are now part of Autograph's collection.
Our second Open Call of this anniversary year takes inspiration from Ajetunmobi’s photographs, inviting submissions that draw on the theme of heritage and culture. The deadline to apply is 5 February 2024.
Now, in 2024, Autograph presents two exhibition that examine climate justice and ecology; Mónica Alcázar-Duarte: Digital Clouds Don't Carry Rain and Wilfred Ukpong: Niger-Delta / Future-Cosmos.
Mónica Alcázar-Duarte's photographs interweaving indigenous knowledge, colonial legacy and ecological urgency, and Wilfred Ukpong's visual meditations on the environmental crisis in the Niger Delta invite us to reflect on the intervention and activism of artists addressing this pressing subject matter.
Our third and final open call for our anniversary year calls extends this critical reflection and invites submissions that draw on the theme of climate justice. The deadline to apply is 22 April 2024.
Find out more
Images on page: 1) Joy Gregory from the series Autoportrait, 1989-90. Commissioned by Autograph. 2) Bandele 'Tex' Ajetunmobi, Untitled (Three men at garage) [detail], from the series East End Portraits. Courtesy the artist and Autograph, London.
Autograph is a place to see things differently. Since 1988, we have championed photography that explores issues of race, identity, representation, human rights and social justice, sharing how photographs reflect lived experiences and shape our understanding of ourselves and others.
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