the merck prize

Present Tense describes the present not as a moment in time but as a specific state: an unstable, open presence where perception, reality, and the future are negotiated simultaneously. Events are not defined as past facts but are offered as current experiences. The present is not told as a captured story but as an ongoing, open process.

The call for entries understands "Present Tense" not only as a temporal category but also as a description of an event in a state of tension: a restless, fragile instance of time characterised by uncertainty, distillation, and change. "Present Tense" also refers to the current state of the medium of photography itself – a practice repositioning itself between documentation, perception, encounter, and social responsibility.

Through its immediate presence, contact, encounter, and exchange with others, photography offers a relational approach to reality. This distinguishes it from AI and other generative image systems, which derive a speculative idea of the past. Photography, by contrast, arises in dialogue with other people, architecture, situations, perspectives, and experiences. The photographic process not only creates the image but also becomes an act – a means of sharpening perception, enabling experience, guiding attention, and making social realities tangible.

We invite artists and photographers to submit works made in direct contact with the world, which is shaped by place, encounter, and a dialogue with other perspectives, and is grounded in a belief that photography can be an active instrument. It is not only a way of seeing, but a way of acting. We're looking for work that doesn't simply depict the present but makes it palpable in all its complexity: its fractures, tensions, and contradictions, and creates proximity, unsettles perception, and brings the structures and challenges of our moment into view.