The 2026 VISUREAL · International Image Art Festival (VIIAF) is an international platform dedicated to image-based art, integrating artistic creation with research-driven curatorial inquiry. Situated within contemporary global contexts, the festival re-examines the cultural significance of the Silk Road, employing images as an open visual language to connect history, reality, and imagination.

Rooted in Chengdu yet oriented toward a global perspective, the festival presents photography, micro-films, short videos, AI-generated imagery, and AR/VR installations to explore the flows and interconnections of people, ideas, technologies, and cultures across time and space.

Through exhibitions, academic forums, workshops, and digital platforms, VIIAF operates as a contemporary artistic inquiry into connection, coexistence, and intercultural dialogue, positioning image-based practices as both research and public engagement.

The 2026 international art festival will explore how human connections are formed across time, space, and technology. Using the Silk Road as a cultural model rather than a historical route, the project examines networks of movement, exchange, and communication from pre-modern civilizations to today’s digital world.

Through image-based practices—photography, moving image, documentary, and emerging technologies—the festival investigates how historical memory, bodily migration, material circulation, and technological systems continuously reshape global culture.

The theme unfolds through four interconnected dimensions:
▼ Waystations (History & Memory)
▼ Corridors (Human Mobility)
▼ Trade Routes (Material Flow)
▼ Nodes (Technology & Networks)

Applications are open to individuals / teams / creative practitioners and curators who have photographic works (single images, photo series, photo series not exceeding 10 images), video works (micro films 2 – 10 minutes in length, documentaries 10 – 45 minutes in length, other works not exceeding 30 minutes in length). Works must revolve around themes related to the “Belt and Road Initiative” (such as cultural exchange, trade connectivity, human stories, historical memories, contemporary development etc.)

Deadline for submissions: May 01, 2026. >> Application Form >>
Please send your application form and artwork submissions to: ny20plus.project@gmail.com