CALL FOR IMAGES

‘I search for the scattered story in fragments (emotional and formal). I search dramatically for unity, even though it is difficult to grasp, even though it is utopian, even though it is impossible.’
Jannis Kounellis, Odissea lagunare (translated from), 1993, p.92.

The fragment is first and foremost a hermeneutic category: it evokes a lost wholeness and, at the same time, an awareness of its definitive inaccessibility. It is precisely in this tension towards an impossible completeness that the fragment finds its deepest meaning.
Architecture often survives as a fragment. Bodiless ruins, traces suspended between ruin and foundation, signs that ask to be read, interpreted, evoked. The built structure disintegrates, but its meaning persists, sometimes reinforced by its absence. The same happens in every representation, which, however extensive or detailed, always remains partial, reaching towards reality but irreducibly distinct from it.

SUBJECT MATTER

From the 1970s onwards, between semiotics, phenomenology, and design criticism, a new way of looking at architecture emerged. No longer just objects, but discourses, signs, texts. Umberto Eco, in La struttura assente (1968), emphasises the value of what can be “imagined, deduced, projected”; Colin Rowe, in Collage City (1978), sees the fragment not as a loss, but as the possibility of a critical collage; Aldo Rossi identifies ruins as a fixed scene of collective memory, while the experiences of radical architecture and paper architecture propose an immaterial construction, made up of images, visions, and narratives.
To recount the fragment, then, means to question the immaterial: atmospheres, memories, rituals, gestures. From this perspective, Mediterranean culture offers a privileged observatory for research, due to its density of stratifications and contaminations; but the field remains open to different geographies and cultures, because fragments and absences belong to every time and place.

DRAWING AND REPRESENTATION

In this sense, drawing, in its many forms, constitutes a language capable of documenting, interpreting and stimulating a dialogue on immateriality. The thought, action, and object of drawing reflect the many faces of Intangible Cultural Heritage: traditions, rituals, products, and practices that make up a vast spectrum of expressions.
The call therefore invites participants to represent these absences and partial presences, to give visual form to the fragment as a device for memory, imagination, and narration.

THE CHALLENGE

GRAF_I 2026 invites scholars, designers, artists, and researchers to explore the potential of drawing, confronting the representation of fragments, absence, and immaterial, understood as memory, imagination, and critical possibility. Each image – analogue, digital, photographic, or hybrid – should be conceived as a form of graphism. A visual script that not only describes, but also interprets, reworks, and evokes. It is not a question of filling a void, but of constructing a device capable of making the invisible visible. Absence that becomes presence, traces that become stories, fragments that become a project.

VISUAL ATLAS

The result will be the collective construction of a visual Atlas of fragments. A repertoire of signs, traces, ruins, and imaginations that is not intended to be merely a memory, but a tool for interpretation and design. A collective work that intertwines different perspectives, weaving the fabric of a shared narrative about absence and permanence, identity, and its continuous rewriting.

RESEARCH THEMES

#oralstories #myths #migrations #culturalcontaminations #aestheticsofdiscontinuity #ruinsascollectivememory #tracesastheoreticaldevices #artisanknowledge #rites #techniquesasimmaterialarchitectures #chromaticatmospheres #sounds #thresholdspacesbetweenland andwater #landscapeswithoutbuildings #graphicfragments #representations #criticalcollages #absentarchitectures

INFORMATION AND PUBLICATION

The accepted papers will be published in GRAF_I 2026 Catalogue, part of the GRAF_I series, released by PVBLICA Press in digital format, and presented in a dedicated exhibition that can also be seen remotely.

KEY DATES AND REGISTRATION FEES

Deadlines and submission modes — Time-table

  • Call announcement: 27 September 2025
  • Deadline for submitting the works: 23 February 2026
  • Day of the symposium: June 2026

Payment

Participation in the call for images requires a publication fee to be paid upon receipt of confirmation that the work has been accepted.
The participation fee is related to an individual work and includes participation in the symposium.
If a work has been created by more than one author, only one participation fee is required; if more than one author participates in the symposium, an additional fee is required for each author beyond the first.
Participation in the call for images is free for students enrolled in an Italian or foreign degree course.

  • Early-bird fee (registration within 15 May 2026): 40€
  • Regular fee (registration from 16 May 2026 to 15 June 2026): 80€
  • Participation fee for just the symposium attendance: 20€

REQUIRED WORKS

Image

  • Size: 27×27 cm
  • Format: TIFF, 300 dpi, CMYK
  • Caption: max 300 characters
  • Source indications and/or credits: 30 words maximum

Text

  • Between 8,000 and 10,000 characters (spaces included)
  • Languages: Italian or English

Files to be submitted

  • An anonymous .pdf file for blind peer review and a Word file (.docx), both containing the image and text laid out.
  • File naming syntax: Surname_Title.pdf; Surname_Title.docx.

SUBMISSION

The individual work (mainly consisting of a cover image in 27x27cm format, an abstract of no more than 1,000 characters, and a text commenting on the image of no more than 10,000 characters and no less than 8,000), in Italian or English, must be sent to the e-mail address grafi.callforimages@gmail.com in a compressed folder sent via WeTransfer service.
The compressed folder must contain:

1) The image in .tiff format named: author name_image title.tiff.

2) The text file in .doc or .docx format named: author name_abstract title.doc. The text file must contain:

  • Title (between 50 and 80 characters).
  • The author(s).
  • Affiliations of the individual authors of the work.
  • E-mail addresses of the individual authors of the work.
  • An abstract (with a maximum length of 1,000 characters).
  • Keywords (maximum 5).
  • A short paper (between a minimum of 8,000 characters and a maximum of 10,000 characters).
  • A caption (maximum 300 characters) and any credits for the image used (maximum 30 words), if the rights holder is someone other than the authors of the contribution.
  • References (a maximum of 10 entries is permitted).
  • A short biography for each author (a maximum length of 200 characters is permitted per author).
  • Images: 1 image measuring 27×27 cm with a resolution of 300 DPI.
  • FOOTNOTES AND ENDNOTES ARE NOT ALLOWED.

The file to be submitted for double-blind peer review may be freely formatted and must contain all materials relating to the extended work (title, abstract, keywords, bibliographical references, image sources, images and tables, captions), with the exception of the authors’ names, affiliations, and email addresses. The file must be provided in both .doc (or .docx) and .pdf formats and must be named Surname_review.doc (or .docx). Any reference that could make the author(s) recognisable must be removed from every part of the file.

All the above materials must be contained in a single compressed folder and sent via WeTransfer (or similar transfer service) to the following address: grafi.callforimages@gmail.com.

Editorial Norms ENG
Norme Editoriali ITA

Please pay attention to the Editorial Norms when preparing your contributions and, in any case, before sending them. If you require clarification or further information on the Editorial Norms, please write to grafi.callforimages@gmail.com.

ORGANISING COMMITTEE

  • Nicola La Vitola – Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria
  • Sonia Mercurio – Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria
  • Sonia Mollica – Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria
  • Luca Vespasiano – Università degli Studi dell’Aquila
  • Johan Sebastián Wilches Rivera – Politecnico di Bari
  • Flavia Camagni – Università San Raffaele Roma
  • Luca Martelli – Sapienza Università di Roma
  • Simone Sanna – Università degli Studi di Sassari
  • Andrea Sias – Università degli Studi di Sassari

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

  • Marinella Arena – Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria
  • Paolo Belardi – Università degli Studi di Perugia
  • Stefano Brusaporci – Università degli Studi dell’Aquila
  • Enrico Cicalò – Università degli Studi di Sassari
  • Daniele Colistra – Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria
  • Fabio Colonnese – Sapienza – Università di Roma
  • Edoardo Dotto – Università di Catania
  • Marco Fasolo – Sapienza – Università di Roma
  • Francesca Fatta – Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria
  • Riccardo Florio – Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
  • Elena Ippoliti – Sapienza – Università di Roma
  • Dominik Lengyel – BTU – Brandenburgische Technische Universität Cottbus–Senftenberg
  • Massimo Leserri – Politecnico di Bari
  • Massimiliano Lo Turco – Politecnico di Torino
  • Federica Maietti – Università di Ferrara
  • Pamela Maiezza – Università degli Studi dell’Aquila
  • Domenico Mediati – Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria
  • Valeria Menchetelli – Università degli Studi di Perugia
  • Nancy Rozo Montaña – UNAL – Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotà
  • Sandro Parrinello – Università degli Studi di Firenze
  • Pablo Rodriguez-Navarro – UPV – Universitat Politècnica de València
  • Paola Raffa – Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria
  • Gabriele Rossi – Politecnico di Bari
  • Rossella Salerno – Politecnico di Milano
  • Ana María Torres Barchino – UPV – Universitat Politècnica de València
  • Michele Valentino – Università degli Studi di Sassari

PATRONAGE

Under the Patronage of Dipartimento di Architettura e Design (dAeD)
of Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria

Under the Patronage
of CUIA – Conferenza Universitaria Italiana di Architettura

Under the Patronage of Unione Italiana per il Disegno
Scientific Society