Visiting Researcher

VISITING RESEARCHER FELLOWSHIP

POSTGRATUATE RESEARCH PROGRAMME

Visiting

Researcher

Fellowship

Five fellowships are awarded yearly to PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, and scholars to support research on photography and the archive.

APPLICATION IS CLOSED

PROGRAMME OVERVIEW

VIEW PAST EDITIONS

INQUIRIES

OVERVIEW
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The Visiting Researcher Fellowship supports scholars, artists, and curators whose work engages critically with photography, archives, and visual culture. The programme provides a framework for developing research projects in dialogue with ARCHIVO’s interdisciplinary platform, fostering exchanges between theoretical inquiry, archival research, and artistic practice.

Collaboration at the Archivo Research Platform is volunteer and held remotely. Fellows are invited to pursue independent research while participating in the intellectual environment promoted by ARCHIVO, which encourages critical reflection on the cultural, political, and epistemological dimensions of archives and photographic practices. During the fellowship period, visiting researchers are expected to engage with the programme’s activities, contributing to discussions and presenting their ongoing research to the ARCHIVO community.

The fellowship aims to promote international collaboration and to support projects that advance innovative perspectives on archival practices, visual historiography, and the critical study of photographic collections.

ELEGIBILITY
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The Visiting Researcher Fellowship is open to PhD and postdoctoral researchers, scholars and independent researchers, as well as artists and curators, working in fields related to photography, visual culture, archival studies, documentary, art history, media studies, or related disciplines.

Applicants should:

be older than 18 years old,
demonstrate an established research trajectory and propose a project that would benefit from engagement with ARCHIVO’s research environment,
be proficient in spoken and written English.

REQUIREMENTS
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Throughout the collaboration period, the Archivo Research Platform provides access to an international community of peers; the opportunity to engage in a series of academic and artistic activities; and unlimited access to the platform's media archive and other exclusive benefits.

Collaboration at the Archivo Research Platform is volunteer and held remotely. During group meetings, Visiting Researchers must confirm that they're able to share video and sound at all times, and that there’s no disturbance from background noise.

The collaboration within ARCHIVO LAB spans from January to July, with an inboard period between november and december.

Participants are expected to dedicate approximately 20 to 30 hours per month to LAB-related activities. This estimate is indicative and may vary according to the nature of each project and the programme calendar. The time commitment includes both synchronous activities (meetings, events) and asynchronous work (research, project development). Attendance of at least 80% of scheduled sessions is expected.

Visiting Researchers are expected to collaborate as follows:

ENGAGEMENT
Visiting Researchers should attend and actively participate in the Archivo's annual program of events and Network activities. This includes: Network meetings; Webinar Series; Reading Groups; Journal and LAB Open Sessions.
CONTRIBUTION
Visiting Researchers should contribute to expanding the platform's open-access content connected to the annual thematic line of research. This includes:
— Presenting your research work in an online public event programmed by the Archivo Platform (Open Session);
— Providing one written contribution connected to the thematic line 2026 to the PHOTOFILE - Blog on Visual Culture, in the form of an essay;
COOPERATION
Visiting Researchers should serve as a community advocate for the Archivo Research Network by sharing the Platform's activities through their students, peers and academic/social networks.

REVIEW PROCESS
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Applications are evaluated by the programme coordinator and ARCHIVO selection committee.

When appropriate, external advisors with expertise in the relevant research fields will be invited to contribute.

Proposals are assessed according to the following criteria:

The scholarly or artistic merit and originality of the proposed research
The relevance of the project to ARCHIVO’s thematic focus
The feasibility of the research plan within the proposed timeframe
The potential contribution of the applicant’s work to the intellectual environment and activities of ARCHIVO

Successful applicants will be notified following the completion of the review process.

ARCHIVAL ENTANGLEMENTS

RESEARCHING ECOLOGIES OF CARE

The Visiting Researchers' program 2026 invites researchers working across visual culture, archival theory, environmental humanities, and care ethics to explore how archives—understood as material, affective, and conceptual infrastructures—shape and are shaped by ecological thought.

Focusing on the entangled relationships between memory, ecology, and social responsibility, the program encourages critical investigations into how archival practices can generate alternative modes of knowledge rooted in care, situatedness, and interdependence. Selected visiting researchers will develop independent work in dialogue with the broader framework of Archivo Papers thematic volume "Haunted Archives of Livingness," contributing to a collective inquiry into how archives may serve as sites of resistance, healing, and ecological imagination.

In addition, one-to-one discussions will be organised between visiting researchers and the editorial team of Archivo Papers, with a view to developing potential contributions for the 2026 volume of the journal. These meetings aim to foster meaningful exchanges around each researcher's project and support the development of publishable work aligned with the journal's thematic and critical scope.

VISITING RESEARCHERS 2026

THE ARCHIVE AS A MODEL/SOURCE

The Visiting Researchers' programme 2025 seeks to investigate archival practices in visual arts by inviting proposals that examine various approaches to the archive as both a structural model and a source of information for artistic, curatorial, and cultural practices, spanning from historical, political and cultural standpoints.

In this edition, we aim to explore contemporary archive-based visual arts and contemporary archival sources and collections, emphasising critical approaches and case studies that interrogate established notions of archival documents as static sources of knowledge, testing innovative methodologies for experimenting with and producing meaning within archival imagery and its various forms of appropriation within art and visual studies.

VISITING RESEARCHERS 2025

ARCHIVE AND CONFLICT

The Visiting Researchers’ program 2024 focused on the theme “Archive and Conflict,” inviting proposals that critically examine the role of archives in the construction, mediation, and contestation of conflict narratives. The programme explored how visual and material records of war, colonialism, political unrest, and social struggle are produced, circulated, and preserved, while also addressing the silences, omissions, and power structures embedded within archival systems. Emphasis was placed on practices that interrogate the archive as both a site of authority and a space of resistance, encouraging approaches that engage with contested histories, counter-visualities, and the reactivation of archival materials within artistic, curatorial, and research-based frameworks.

VISITING RESEARCHERS 2024

ARCHIVE AND CONFLICT

THE INDIGENOUS GAZE

The Visiting Researchers’ Programme 2023 focused on the theme “The Indigenous Gaze,” inviting proposals that foreground Indigenous perspectives in relation to visual culture and archival practices. The programme explored how Indigenous communities engage with, challenge, and reframe dominant representational systems, emphasising the production, circulation, and interpretation of images from within Indigenous epistemologies. Particular attention was given to practices that question colonial frameworks of knowledge, address issues of authorship and agency, and activate archives as sites of memory, resistance, and cultural continuity through artistic, curatorial, and research-based approaches.

VISITING RESEARCHERS 2023

SHAPING TIME

The Visiting Researchers’ Programme 2022 focused on the theme “Shaping Time: Photography and the Artistic Construction of the Contemporary,” inviting proposals that examine how photographic practices engage with and construct notions of temporality in relation to contemporary experience. The programme explored photography as a medium that not only records but actively shapes perceptions of the present, addressing its role in articulating histories, futures, and the conditions of contemporaneity. Emphasis was placed on projects that investigate the temporal dimensions of images and archives, considering strategies of sequencing, repetition, duration, and reactivation within artistic, curatorial, and research-based frameworks.

VISITING RESEARCHERS 2022

Ioanna Sakellaraki_The Interval of Unreason_25.jpg

MYTHOLOGIES OF THE 21st CENTIRY

The Visiting Researchers’ Programme 2021 focused on the theme “Mythologies of the 21st Century,” inviting proposals that critically examine the construction of contemporary myths through visual culture and media. The programme explored how images, narratives, and symbolic systems shape collective imaginaries in the present, addressing their role in producing and reinforcing ideologies, identities, and social values. Emphasis was placed on practices that interrogate the mechanisms through which meaning is constructed and circulated, encouraging projects that engage with myth-making processes across artistic, curatorial, and research-based contexts.