human rights

The SPE (Society for Photographic Education) Media Festival (originally the SPE Women's Film Festival) has featured innovative and provocative short documentaries, animation and fiction by, for and about women and minorities since 1995. Due to COVID-10, the 2021 Media Fest will be held online for five days, March 17-21, during the 2021 SPE National Conference. The SPE Media Fest will be available online to the public without charge for five days only. The theme of the conference is Imagining Legacy: Archives, Collections, and Memoria. Narrative, documentary, animated and experimental shorts under 30 minutes, that address issues of concern to minorities, women, global or LGBTQ communities, human rights, or the conference theme are eligible. All rights must be cleared. Laurels for three awards, Best Women’s Film, Best Multicultural Film, and Best LGBTQ Film will be awarded. SPE membership is not required to enter the festival.

For this year's festival edition, we are looking for a poster that creatively approaches the diverse topics related to human rights.

The design should work both as a poster and in an adapted form as a sticker and folding flyer.

It is important to us that the poster design does not fall back on the clichéd or stereotyped images and representations which are often reproduced in the human rights context. It should not be an explicit treatise or representation of human rights, in which prejudices, dualisms or power differences are being reproduced, but rather a sensitive approach to this complex topic.

“Moving away from static and fixed points of reference towards multiple spaces of meaning. Spaces between fixed categories, between the here and there, between self-determination and foreign attribution, between longing and belonging. A kaleidoscope – a diverse, fluid space of innumerable possibilities and overlaps; a reflection on movement and change, allowing ambivalence and contrast.”

These words can serve as an impetus – yet the room for interpretation can remain wide, enabling countless possibilities for creative processes and creations. There is no static guideline or direction which the artist needs to adhere to!

Formal Requirements:

There are no technical and stylistic requirements for the poster. However, this human world reserves the right to adapt the poster design to various types of print - in consultation and agreement with the artist.

The festival logo and all relevant information (locations, homepage, logos) must be visible in the final version of the poster and can be included in the submitted version. The logo can be downloaded on the festival’s homepage.

The poster is intended to represent the festival's identity to public and will be published in the form of various printed materials and on the internet.

A jury consisting of artists, filmmakers and this human world festival directors will choose the winning design.

Since the financial situation of the festival has changed, we have decided to increase the remuneration of the competition.

1st place: 800 €

2nd place: 300 €

3rd place: 300 €

Conditions of participation and guidelines:

Technical requirements:

Resolution: min. 300dpi

Submissions are only accepted as PDF.

Prize money 1st prize: 800 Euro

Legal statement:

The following legal declaration must be enclosed with each submission;

this human world may use the poster design I submitted free of charge for festival-related (advertising) purposes, as well as on social media and on video platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo in connection with this human world. There is no exclusive transfer of usage rights to this human world. Image rights have been clarified by the submitter and rest with the author of the design. Any claims for damages by third parties will be forwarded to the submitter.

With the poster’s submission, each submitter agrees to the above conditions.