The International Student Film Festival (STIFF) invites artists to submit their works for an international exhibition as part of the festival’s accompanying programme.

Through its accompanying programme, STIFF aims to create a space for critical reflection, encounter, education, and dialogue with audiences. The exhibition programme brings together artists from around the world whose works further analyse, question, and highlight the complexity of the festival’s thematic focus.

The open call welcomes works that engage with the theme of error, created across a variety of media – from audiovisual works, performances, participatory projects, and digital works (GIFs, memes, NFTs, computer graphics, 3D objects, video games, websites, applications, and video) to photographs, installations, interactive objects, and text-based works that can be interpreted within exhibition or public spaces.

When reflecting on error, everyday language and social structures tend to impose a negative connotation upon it. In a world where “defective goods” are automatically devalued, mistakes are concealed, and deviations from expected plans demand correction, error becomes a sign of failure, imperfection, or poor decision-making. But when does something become an error, and who determines the value of that which is considered “defective”? Why does deviation from the norm so often automatically imply lesser value?

In artistic practice, error is often a hidden trace of the process itself – the residue of experimentation or an unexpected path toward a final form. But can something truly be called a mistake if it exists as such only in the eyes of its creator? Can the deliberate act of doing something wrong become an act of resistance or freedom?

When error manifests through anachronism, temporal dissonance, or a sense of systemic non-belonging, it destabilises established power relations. At the same time, within our moral codes and through the lens of religion, error is transformed into sin and guilt. Is the cyclical repetition of the same patterns and the return to past decisions an unbearable burden, or is it an experience that provides a solid foundation for growth?

Through diverse artistic approaches, we seek to open a space for considering error as an inevitable part of any process and to explore its creative potential as a site of new meanings, learning, transformation, and healthy change.

Application deadline: July 5

Guidelines:
– Applications must be submitted via the online form available at the provided link.
– Submitted artworks must be original.
– This exhibition is non-competitive in nature, and no awards will be presented.
– The call is open to all artists regardless of age or formal educational background.