3rd Essen Symposium for Photography

Registration Page

We are looking forward to welcoming you to the 3rd Essen Symposium for Photography, held from February 4–5, 2026 at SANAA-Building, UNESCO World Heritage Zollverein in Essen, Germany. Please fill out the following form to complete your registration.

Steffen Siegel (D–Essen): Welcome: From Here Where to?

Monica Bravo (USA–Princeton): A Future History of Spatial Photography

Bernd Behr (GB–London): A Code Without a Message: Photography’s Topological Turn in the Age of Machine Learning

Helen Westgeest (NL–Leiden): Living a Photographic Way of Life in a Mediating Body

Paul Frosh (ISR–Jerusalem): What Will Become of the Body of Photography?

André Gunthert (F–Paris): The Accidents of Truth in Photography

Terrence Phearse (USA–New York): Mise en Sein: Ontological Unraveling of Photography and the Invisibility of Black Phenomenology

Daniel Rubinstein (GB–London): Photography as Artificial Unconscious: Desire, Sublimation & the Alpha Function

Cringuta Irina Pelea (ROM–Bukarest): Virtual Human Photography in Japan: When the Photographed Subject Never Existed

Therese Schuleit (D–Mülheim): From Photocopier to Prompt: The Bureaucratic Image in the Post-Photographic Age

Jens Schröter (D–Bonn): Photography and Ghost Imaging

Michelle Henning (GB–Liverpool): Sense and Sensitivity: Speculations on the Future of Photography

Markus Rautzenberg (D–Essen): Conclusion: From Here Where to?

City Hall Essen, Public Reception with presentation of the Timm Rautert Archive
Participation requires separate registration, please use the designated form field as part of the registration process

Please register here for the 3rd Essen Symposium for Photography. 

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On February 5, 2026, at 6:30 PM, the Mayor of Essen invites to a reception at the Town Hall. The occassion is the public presentation of the Timm Rautert Archive. Attendance is limited. Please let us firmly know here if you would like to attend.

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Partners

The 3rd Essen Symposium for Photography is generously funded by the City of Essen.

On behalf of the Essen Center for Photography, the 3rd Essen Symposium for Photography is organized by:

Franziska Barth (Ruhr University Bochum),
Vera Knippschild (Folkwang University of the Arts), 
Mona Leinung (Folkwang University of the Arts), 
Markus Rautzenberg (Folkwang University of the Arts), 
Anja Schürmann (Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) Essen), 
Steffen Siegel (Folkwang University of the Arts), 
Jakob Schnetz (Folkwang University of the Arts & Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) Essen), and 
Francisco Vogel (Folkwang University of the Arts).

Before and after the conference, the partner institutions of the Essen Center for Photography, Krupp Historical Archive, Museum Folkwang, and Ruhr Museum, invite attendees to a varied accompanying program. This will take place on February 3 and 6, 2026. Therefore no registration is required. For more information klick here.

The 3rd Essen Symposium for Photography takes place at SANAA-Building, UNESCO World Heritage Zollverein