Question 1

ELIGIBILITY

Accepted Answer

The Deck the Halls: A Holiday Pop-Up Digital Exhibition presented by The Pictorial Foundation is open to all photographers of all genres.

Question 2

HOW TO ENTER

Accepted Answer

Entries must be made using the online form before midnight on 21st November 2025.
A maximum of five works per artist can be submitted.
A $10 entry fee for a single photograph. Or 3 for $20. Or 5 for $30. Payment is made during the online entry process.
Entry receipts will be provided on payment.
The entry fee is non-refundable and contributes to administration and curation of the digital exhibition.
Judging will be conducted online in digital form.
Entry details must be accurate as these cannot be changed once the entry is lodged.
One photograph per artist will be exhibited.

Question 3

PHOTOGRAPH REQUIREMENTS

Accepted Answer

File Settings:
Format: JPEG or TIFF
Color Space: sRGB or RGB prophoto
Quality: 90
Image Sizing - longest length 4000 px
Resolution: 150dpi
Output Sharpening: Sharpen for Screen → Low
No frames or watermarks
The file name must include the artist’s name and title of the photograph as listed on the entry form e.g. firstname_lastname_titleofwork.jpg

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: The exhibition will run 24/7 in our art space on a large widescreen video projection and digital installation. Please take the 16:9 format into consideration when you submit your photographs. Anything in portrait format will not have the same impact as one in a landscape format. However, if you are okay with that, it is perfectly acceptable.

Should your work be selected, your name and the photograph details you include in this submission form will be used to generate the exhibition - PLEASE ENSURE THEY ARE CORRECT and keep a record of your artwork details, as we may not be able to accommodate changes.

Question 4

SELECTION

Accepted Answer

By submitting and paying the submission fee, you are not guaranteed entry into the exhibition.

While we endeavor to be as inclusive as possible, space is limited and the photographs will be selected at the curator's discretion. We are a non-profit organization, and your submission fee assists us to cover the costs of processing all entries and running the exhibition. There are no other costs involved to participate in the digital exhibition. By submitting your application, you accept that your submission fee is non-refundable regardless of the outcome of your submission.

Question 5

NOTIFICATION

Accepted Answer

Photographs will be selected for final judging and exhibition by the Pictorial Foundation board. All entrants will be notified by personal email. If you do not receive an email, please check your spam before letting us know. The list of artists in the exhibition will be posted on social media and on the Pictorial Foundation website in conjunction with the live exhibition after the selected artists have been notified.

If you have submitted more than one work, we will let you know in the email which one has been selected.

Question 6

TERMS & CONDITIONS

Accepted Answer

By submitting an entry, the artist grants the Pictorial Foundation and The Pictorial List Inc. a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to record, reproduce and publish images of their work, as well as in-situ installation views, for the purposes of promotion, publicity, documentation, and archival use related to the exhibition and associated activities.

This license includes, but is not limited to, use in printed publications, catalogues, brochures, posters, digital presentations, slideshows, websites, and social media platforms of the Pictorial Foundation and The Pictorial List Inc.

Copyright and all moral rights remain the sole property of the artist.

Question 7

COMMUNICATION & PRIVACY

Accepted Answer

Artists consent to being added to the Pictorial Foundation/The Pictorial List Inc. electronic mailing list for updates and further information on this exhibition and subsequent open calls run by Pictorial Foundation/The Pictorial List Inc. Artists details will not be shared and an unsubscribe link is provided in each email.

Question 8

QUESTIONS?

Accepted Answer

If you have any questions regarding the exhibition or your entry, please get in touch with us via info@thepictorialist.org

Question 9

FOR ARTISTS UNABLE TO COVER COURIER COSTS

Accepted Answer

To ensure accessibility and inclusivity, the Pictorial Foundation also offers the option for artists to have their work presented digitally. Selected works may be featured on our large-format screens within the Art Space, allowing artists globally to participate in the exhibition without the expense of shipping physical artworks. This initiative supports broader participation while maintaining professional presentation standards. When submitting your application, please indicate in the comments section if you would like your work to be displayed digitally. If your submission is selected, we will contact you to discuss the most suitable image specifications and formatting for optimal display on our widescreen monitors.

Photographers who are unable to deliver their work may request information about our in-house print production services. The Pictorial Foundation can facilitate printing and provide a detailed cost estimate prior to production. Please note that any associated printing costs are additional to the standard entry fee. When submitting your application, kindly indicate in the comments section if you would like to use this service. Should your work be selected, we will contact you to discuss printing options, specifications and costs.

Question 10

ABOUT THE CURATIONAL TEAM

Accepted Answer

The theme Foundations of Practice draws its inspiration from the collaborative project Human Systems of a Structure by guest artists Madison Pomarico and Paola Pomarico. Originating as a study of the physical and conceptual interfaces between body, material, and built environment, the project investigated how human presence shapes — and is shaped by — the structures it inhabits.

Madison and Paola bring their research-based, cross-disciplinary practices to expand the dialogue between material process, performance, and spatial experience. They collaborate alongside curators Karen Ghostlaw Pomarico and Melanie Meggs of the Pictorial Foundation and The Pictorial List.

Together, the curatorial team bridges generations, disciplines, and geographies to shape an exhibition that reflects the Foundation’s commitment to collaboration, experimentation, and the ongoing evolution of creative practice.

About the Curational Team:

Karen Ghostlaw — is a New York and international exhibiting artist and photographer whose practice is grounded in collaboration, connection, and engagement with people and place. She approaches photography as a relational process prioritizing authentic human interaction over staged representation. As co-founder of Pictorial Foundation, Karen develops artist-led initiatives that foster cross-cultural collaboration, social understanding, and community-based storytelling. Working globally, Karen continues to expand the reach of visual storytelling through exhibitions, publications, and educational programs that celebrate the shared language of art.

Melanie Meggs — is an Australian multidisciplinary artist, international curator and writer. Her art practice engages with feminist epistemologies by positioning lived experience as a form of knowledge. Working across painting, photography, printmaking, and mixed-media installation, she explores how identity, memory, and emotion are constructed through visual culture. Her work examines the intimate negotiations between vulnerability and resilience, revealing how women build and reimagine themselves through creative process. As co-founder of Pictorial Foundation, Melanie also develops artist-focused initiatives that support equitable access to creative opportunity and foster transnational dialogue between artists.

GUESTS:

Madison Pomarico — is an American born, Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist whose practice engages with the interface of performance, movement, and visual languages in combination with the use of technological elements that challenge the limits of the body, and various levels of performer autonomy. Her work is driven by a sense of experiment and artistic cross-pollination between visual arts and different genres of performance - expanding our perception of tangible experience and pushing the boundaries of expectation. She works with mediums such as light, video, and graphic programming environments in an attempt to dissolve established modes of working digitally and materially and invent new immersive methods in the process.

Paola Pomarico — is a New York City based artist whose transdisciplinary practice explores the social agency and animacy of infrastructure. Paola is a mother of tools available for public use. Within the relational aesthetics of a community tool closet, Paola creates discourse advocating deeper recognition for her children’s lively character—tools whose aged condition expresses their shared performance of labor with herself and others. In site-specific interventions, she explores how high-visibility color can draw attention to civic surfaces, amplifying the affective potency of infrastructures' stressful servitude. Her colorful relief prints of floors reveal indexical impressions embodying their history of support. Restoring sidewalks with bright pink patchwork, she reciprocates the care of infrastructure’s laboring performance. Paola's calls for attention seek to foster empathy and regard for the vibrant ontologies of nonhuman things.

Question 11

ABOUT THE THEME

Accepted Answer

IN AN INSTANT
From Polaroids to Pop-Tarts

The Polaroid changed the tempo of photography in 1948. With a single click, an image began to surface in your hands, developing in real time as people leaned in to watch. Instant film made memory visible almost immediately, turning the act of taking a photograph into a shared event.

When instant photography burst onto the scene in the mid-20th century, it felt like magic. You pressed the shutter and — within minutes — an image bloomed in your hands. No darkroom. No waiting. Just chemistry, surprise, and a small square memory you could pass around the room.

In an Instant celebrates that spark of wonder while tracing how the idea of “instant” grew from novelty to norm. From instant photos to instant coffee, instant messaging to instant fame, speed became not just convenience but culture.

This exhibition brings together contemporary instant film works alongside family Polaroids from decades past, snapshots of birthdays, vacations, awkward haircuts, and living rooms frozen in time. These personal archives remind us that instant photography once meant gathering around a developing image, watching memory surface slowly, together.

At the same time, the exhibition highlights artists who have embraced instant film not simply for its nostalgia, but for its unpredictability, intimacy, and material presence. For them, the medium is not a novelty. It is a collaborator, one that resists perfection, invites experimentation, and turns immediacy into a deliberate artistic choice.

Playful and immersive, In an Instant embraces the humor, nostalgia, and beautiful imperfection of instant film while asking a light but lingering question: When everything happens now, what makes a moment last?

Come for the flash. Stay for the memory.

DECK THE HALLS
submission information

ELIGIBILITY

HOW TO ENTER

PHOTOGRAPH REQUIREMENTS

SELECTION

NOTIFICATION

TERMS & CONDITIONS

COMMUNICATION & PRIVACY

QUESTIONS?

FOR ARTISTS UNABLE TO COVER COURIER COSTS

ABOUT THE CURATIONAL TEAM

ABOUT THE THEME

© photograph courtesy of Bill Lacey

DECK THE HALLS submission information

ELIGIBILITY

HOW TO ENTER

PHOTOGRAPH REQUIREMENTS

SELECTION

NOTIFICATION

TERMS & CONDITIONS

COMMUNICATION & PRIVACY

QUESTIONS?

FOR ARTISTS UNABLE TO COVER COURIER COSTS

ABOUT THE CURATIONAL TEAM

ABOUT THE THEME

© photograph courtesy of Bill Lacey

DECK THE HALLS
submission information