Backlight Photo Festival 2026 has invited an international group of art professionals to join the jury for the festival’s Open Call. The jury will review submissions from photographers and lens-based artists worldwide and select works to be included in the festival exhibitions built around the theme The Art of Lying.
The Open Call jury consists of:
Anna Ruth
Curator / Visual artist
Anna Ruth (1975, Canada/Finland) is primarily known for her independent curatorial work as the founder and artistic director of the award winning curatorial platform, Äkkigalleria (2009– ) and the photography projects Laatikkomo – Six Degrees of Photography (2013–2019) and Kirkkopuisto Photo Annual (2012–2018). She grew up as an immigrant on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nation in colonial Canada, graduated (MFA) from the Ecole des beaux arts de Quimper, France, and has been based in Jyväskylä, Finland since 2002.
Anna uses art and curation to bring people together, and to learn more about our common humanity.
She is currently working with local and international artists to produce projects for Art without Transportation in Jyväskylä, Finland.
Dana Benlakhdar
Writer / Critic
Dana Benlakhdar (1985, Finland) is an Espoo-based writer working within the wider framework of art and cultural criticism. She writes about art, archives, and lens-based media with a strong focus on epistemology and coloniality. Dana has previously researched the emergence and transmission of alternative, non-European futurities in the globalized context of media art. More recently she’s been working on a project that explores the lasting impact of French colonial aesthetics in contemporary Algeria. She holds an MA in Critical Writing in Art & Design from the Royal College of Art in London, UK.
Franek Ammer
Artist / Curator
Franek Ammer (b. 1988) is a multimedia artist and a curator of Fotofestiwal in Lodz, Poland. Prior to joining the Fotofestiwal collective, he co-founded the TIFF International Photography Festival in Wroclaw. He has devoted a significant part of his career to exploring the medium of photobooks and popularizing them in Poland, resulting in numerous exhibitions, lectures, and collaborations. Within Fotofestiwal, he is responsible for the festival program, exhibition coordination, and primarily the photobook section. Over the years, he has been involved in various collaborative projects, such as the artistic company Eternal Shipping Ltd., the photobook publishing collective 19 Rivers, and Localhost TV—a platform connecting DJs, music producers, and visual artists, set to launch in 2026. He lectures at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz and the University of the Arts in Poznan.
The Backlight Open Call is open to international submissions, and the selected artists will be announced in spring 2026.
More information about the Open Call, eligibility, and schedule can be found here: https://site.picter.com/backlight-photo-festival-2026