THE JOURNEY · THE EXHIBITIONS

Three Perspectives on the Journey

Throughout 2027, THE JOURNEY will also take shape through three independent exhibition projects.

These will not be three stages of the same exhibition, nor will photographers be asked to develop a single photographic project for the entire year.

Instead, they will offer three different ways of interpreting the journey, all emerging from the same curatorial vision while retaining their own identity, selection process and photographic project.

ENCOUNTERS. PASSAGES. HORIZONS.

Three ideas that naturally belong to the experience of a journey, while leaving each photographer free to interpret them through their own visual language, personal experience and photographic practice.

Photographers may apply to a single exhibition or take part in more than one, presenting a different project of 6 photographs for each exhibition.

I · ENCOUNTERS

What we encounter along the way.

Every journey is also about connection.

We encounter people, places, cultures, bodies, cities and landscapes. We encounter what is familiar and what is unknown to us. Sometimes we encounter a person; at other times, a condition, a reality, an absence.

And sometimes, through what we find before us, we encounter a part of ourselves.

ENCOUNTERS does not necessarily mean photographing people. An encounter can take place with a place, with nature, with a city, with a memory, with difference, or with something that surprises us and changes the way we see.

It is the moment when our gaze enters into a relationship with something that did not belong to it before.

ENCOUNTERS will be the first Visio Mentis exhibition project of 2027.

II · PASSAGES

What we pass through and what transforms us.

To journey is to pass through.

We pass through places, stages of life, seasons, borders, relationships and change. We cross cities and landscapes, but also moments of our own existence.

Some passages are clearly visible. Others happen slowly, almost without our noticing.

PASSAGES is the space of time, change and transformation.

It is what we leave behind and what we are becoming. It is that sometimes suspended condition in which we are no longer what we once were, yet not quite what we will become.

A passage may be physical or internal, individual or collective. It may concern a person, a place, a society, a landscape, or simply the passing of time.

III · HORIZONS

What we continue to look towards.

Every journey has a horizon.

Not necessarily a place to be reached.

It may be a desire, a possibility, a search, an imagined future. It may represent hope or distance, freedom or limitation, what we know or what remains unknown to us.

The horizon gives us a direction, yet continues to move as we move towards it.

HORIZONS invites us to tell the story of what calls us beyond the present: what we seek, imagine, desire, or simply continue to look towards without knowing whether we will ever reach it.

Because not every journey needs a destination.

THREE EXHIBITIONS · THREE INDEPENDENT PROJECTS

Each exhibition is an independent project within THE JOURNEY.

For each exhibition, photographers may submit 6 photographs belonging to a coherent body of work, developed in relation to its specific theme: ENCOUNTERS, PASSAGES or HORIZONS.

Participation in one exhibition does not imply participation in those that follow.

The same photographer may, however, apply to more than one exhibition, presenting a different photographic project each time.

There is no need to create new photographs specifically for THE JOURNEY. Existing work, ongoing projects and images from personal archives are all welcome: photographs made years ago may find a new meaning today within one of the themes of THE JOURNEY.

Each exhibition will have its own application process and its own curatorial selection.

Application procedures, deadlines and information for each exhibition will be announced separately.

THE BOOK AND THE EXHIBITIONS: TWO INDEPENDENT PATHS

The THE JOURNEY book and the Visio Mentis 2027 exhibitions belong to the same curatorial project, but remain independent paths.

The book is not an exhibition catalogue, and the three themes ENCOUNTERS, PASSAGES and HORIZONS apply exclusively to the exhibition programme.

For the book, THE JOURNEY remains deliberately open to any interpretation of the journey: geographical or inner, personal or collective, real or symbolic.

Photographers may therefore take part only in the book, only in one or more exhibitions, or in both parts of the project.

Selection for the book does not automatically imply selection for an exhibition, just as participation in an exhibition does not require participation in the book.

ONE PROJECT, MANY JOURNEYS

THE JOURNEY does not ask photographers to tell a single story throughout 2027.

The journey changes as we move through it.

We encounter.
We pass through.
We keep looking beyond.

Three exhibitions.
Three interpretations.
Three ways of telling your own journey.

We are not looking for travel photography.
We are looking for your journey.

FIRST EXHIBITION 2027

I · ENCOUNTERS

The first exhibition of THE JOURNEY · Visio Mentis 2027 will be dedicated to ENCOUNTERS.

To apply, photographers are invited to submit a coherent project of 6 photographs, preferably sharing the same orientation, intended to be exhibited at 50 × 70 cm on 5 mm Forex board.

There is no need to create new work. An existing project or photographs from your archive may also be submitted, provided that the images have an authentic connection with the theme of ENCOUNTERS.

Application deadline: 22 November 2026

Application and selection are free of charge. Participation terms will be communicated directly to selected photographers before they make their final commitment.

APPLY TO ENCOUNTERS