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HOW I SEE MY CAMPUS - The 2021 CIVIS Photo Contest & Exhibition

28 July 2021
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PARTICIPATION DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MONDAY 18 OCTOBER 2021!

Photographers of CIVIS, join our competition and show us your campus through your eyes!

In a world of frenetic change, the people and places around us are constantly transformed, renewed, updated. But even without this change, the world looks different every day – because we ourselves are never the same. Pablo Neruda captured the impossibility of a consistent view in his poem Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada. The protagonist yearns for his departed lover, but even sitting under the same night sky where he had kissed her many times before, he knows that “we, of that time, are no longer the same.” In everyday life, this shifting perspective is hard to perceive, but after a period of separation a friend or a city can look totally different when we see them again.

Across the CIVIS Alliance, the COVID-19 pandemic has left the universities community unable to enjoy the real, normal, physical life of their campus and community. Yearning for the life before, much as Neruda yearned for his lover, we return to find that the university has changed in many ways. And so, perhaps, have we. After more than a year living and working away from the campus, students, researchers, academics and administrative staff are finally renewing ties with their university as a place to be ‘inhabited’. We are rediscovering beloved old haunts, encountering transformed spaces, and noticing things we had passed by a thousand times.

So what do you see now?

The competition

For the Global CIVIS Days 2021, the Université libre de Bruxelles invites members of the CIVIS community, namely the students, academics and administrative staff, to share your unique and renewed perspective on their home university.

Show us your favourite, or strangest, or most unexpected angle of your university!

We invite you to submit photographs showcasing the beauty, originality and strangeness of your university, or even the university community’s reunion with their home. The pictures may represent special or secret spots on the campus, notable or curious decoration, or any other fantastic or funny view on your campus and university spaces. The images can focus on the features in question, or show the university community interacting with the place and each other.

The selected photographs (around 5 per university) will be part of the first CIVIS Exhibition. This will be unveiled as we launch the Global CIVS days in Brussels on 24 November 2021 and will then travel among the nine member universities.

How to submit your photos

You can submit up to three photos by 10 October 2021 18 October 2021. Send your photographs in electronic format, and any questions about the Call to the CIVIS Representation Office at contact@civis.eu following the instructions below:

  1. Subject line: “CIVIS 2021 Photo Contest”
  2. State your name, title (student, professor, etc.) and your university of origin.
  3. The title and brief description (max. 500 characters) of each photo, including the location (GPS coordinates or location description) where the picture was taken. The title of the photo should appear clearly in the file name (e.g. ULB_01; ULB_02).
  4. The download link (e.g. WeTransfer or any other online means).
  5. Completed participation form (obligatory) and image release (if required) - these can be downloaded below.
  6. Please use exclusively your university e-mail account.

Rules of Participation

A selection committee made up of members of three CIVIS Universities, namely the Université libre de Bruxelles, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and University of Glasgow, will be responsible for selecting the photographs that will appear in the CIVIS Exhibition.

Participants whose photos are selected will be notified by the beginning of November. By submitting their photograph, participants authorise the ULB and the other CIVIS member universities to exhibit their work and use it to advertise the event.

Criteria for the Photographs

  • Resolution: minimum 5 MP
  • Aspect Ratio: 1:1 / 5:4 / 4:3 / 3:2 / 5:3 / 16:9 / 3:1 (Landscape or Portrait)
  • File format: TIFF (preferred) / JPEG / PNG / BMP (no PSD or RAW)
  • File size: for any image file larger than 5 MB, please send them in .zip file or a download link.

Send your photos now