CIFRA AWARD

SUBMIT YOUR WORK

Open until May 8

SUBMIT

RestArt Reality

Reality is constructed. Artists know the code. Montage, mockumentary, invented archives, forged images, and identities help them rewrite it. Some call it fake, yet these fakes are no deception. Just the opposite, as poetic methods, creative strategies, and critical gestures – they expose how fragile our sense of reality is.

To RestArt Reality is not to destroy it, but to reveal how it's made. So yes, please, fool us… so we learn to see. Sharpen our perception. Wake us from synthetic daydreams, edited memories, fixed narratives, and manufactured evidence.

This open call invites you to make us notice where reality begins to fracture. Expose what our "truth” is made of and how it’s built. Play it. Turn falsification into your form of care. Critique the game, and open discussions that foster change. Let fiction become a tool for seeing more clearly. RestArt Reality in a way only you know how.

Jury

Li Zhenhua,
China

Сurator, producer, and project manager [[more]] Li Zhenhua is a curator, producer, and project manager active in the field of contemporary art since 1996. His work focuses on curatorial practice, artistic collaboration, and dialogue with filmmakers. Since 2010 he has been a nominator for international initiatives including the Summer Academy at Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Prix Pictet, the Sovereign Asian Art Prize, and the Future Generation Art Prize. From 2014 to 2024 he worked as film curator for Art Basel Hong Kong. In 2025 he served as curator of Noor Riyadh and curator for Futian District at the Glow Shenzhen Festival. Li Zhenhua has also produced films and edited publications dedicated to contemporary artists and critical art writing.
Soh Yeong Roh,
South Korea

Founder and director of Art Center Nabi [[more]] Soh Yeong Roh is the founder and director of Art Center Nabi, Korea’s first institution dedicated to media art, established in 2000. For more than two decades, she has played a pioneering role in shaping the discourse and practice of new media art in South Korea and internationally. With a background in economics and education, Roh began working at the intersection of art and technology as Planning Director of the Future Art Festival at Expo ’93 in Daejeon. Under her leadership, Art Center Nabi has developed programs spanning media art exhibitions, interdisciplinary research, creative education, and incubation for emerging artists. Building on 25 years of practice, Roh explores dialogues between East Asian thought and contemporary science and technology.
Irini Papadimitriou,
UK / Saudi Arabia

Curator, currently Director of Exhibitions at Diriyah Art Futures [[more]] Previously, she served as Creative Director at FutureEverything in the UK, Artistic Director of the Sea Art Festival 2023 in South Korea, Digital Programmes Manager at the V&A, where she established and curated the annual Digital Design Weekend, and Head of New Media Arts Development at Watermans in the UK. Her recent exhibitions include Of the Earth and CONTINUUM 25 at Diriyah Art Futures, AI: Who’s Looking After Me? at Science Gallery London, and Artificially Intelligent at the V&A. She is also co-founder of Maker Assembly and has served as a jury member for Prix Ars Electronica, STARTS, Lumen Prize, and ACM SIGGRAPH.
Sabine Himmelsbach,
Germany / Switzerland

Director of HEK (House of Electronic Arts) Basel [[more]] Dr. h.c. Sabine Himmelsbach is Director of HEK (House of Electronic Arts) in Basel, a position she has held since 2012. After studying art history in Munich, she worked with galleries in Munich and Vienna before becoming project manager for exhibitions and conferences at the Steirischer Herbst Festival in Graz. In 1999 she joined ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe as exhibition director. From 2005 to 2011 she served as artistic director of the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art in Oldenburg. At HEK she has curated numerous exhibitions exploring the intersections of art, technology, and society, including Entangled Realities. Living with Artificial Intelligence and Exploring the Decentralized Web: Art on the Blockchain.

5 winners receive
€1,000 each

Open Call opens
March 10

Submission deadline
May 8

Finalists announced
June 1

RestArt Reality

How to Join

1. Set up your CIFRA account
2. Upload your artwork on CIFRA and copy the link
3. Complete this application form

You can submit screen-native works that engage with pseudo-evidence, invented archives, alternative chronologies, reconstructions, and “false” testimonies, including internet narratives, post-cinema, found footage, and montage essays — you name it.

We welcome any form of digital art – video art, animation, 3D, AI, glitch, hybrid cinema. The only condition is it must be possible to submit as a video. Please do not submit documentation of physical works.

Application Form

Please note that only works uploaded directly to CIFRA in Public mode and submitted through the open call form will be reviewed. If a work is uploaded in Private mode, the jury will not be able to view it. Links to external platforms such as Vimeo, Google Drive, or YouTube are not considered in the review process.