The 2027 Oberhausen Seminar: Open Call for Applications
How can moving images be integrated into contemporary artistic practices? What are their parameters, definitions and genealogies, what are the platforms and modes of viewing and assessing them? The Oberhausen Seminar is an experimental course that examines moving images and contemporary artistic practices in the context of an international film festival. It operates on the boundary between film and art, between festival programming and knowledge production. The thirteenth edition will take place from 27 April to 2 May 2027, led by Hong Kong-based artist, curator and scholar Linda Chiu-han Lai.
The Seminar is aimed at international artists, filmmakers, curators and scholars who work in moving images with a focus on artist films. A diverse group of participants from various geographical regions will examine selected film works, the infrastructures of their distribution and the critical parameters of their curation and analysis. The working language is English, the number of participants is limited to 25. For five days, participants will meet daily to view moving image works and programmes and engage in in-depth conversations.
For the second time, the Oberhausen Seminar 2027 will be led by Dr. Linda Chui-han Lai. Participants will thus profit from an expanded curriculum based on shared previous experience. In addition to questions of experimental art, video-essaying and infrastructural aspects of moving image practices, the Seminar will also explore issues of technology.
The Seminar fee of Euro 275 covers all Seminar sessions plus, a festival pass and refreshments and lunch for the Seminar period (five days). Participants are asked to include a description of their work, their motivation to apply and examples of previous projects if relevant in their application.
The deadline for applications is 31 January 2027.
Selected applicants will be informed in March 2027.
Linda Chiu-han Lai
Known for her work in intermedia arts and media archaeology, Hong Kong-based transdisciplinary artist, curator and scholar Linda Chiu-han Lai brings her videography, experimental arts and pedagogy to the Oberhausen Seminar. Central to Lai’s works are her historiographic experiments, especially the moving image’s power to work against grand narratives and “central conflict” assumptions.
Lai’s works have been presented in Oberhausen’s International Competition in 2005, 2010 and 2011. In 2026, she led the Oberhausen Seminar for the first time. Solo retrospective-screenings of her short videos were presented at the Experimental Film/Video Festival Macao (2015), Experimental Film & Video Festival in Seoul (2017), Centro de Creación Contemporanea de Andalucia (Cordoba, 2021) and the LSK School of Creativity (Hong Kong, 2025). Her large-scale installation works began in the 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012-13); since then, she has had three solo shows of her site-specific installations. Lai is also the founder of the new media art group Writing Machine Collective (2004) and the participatory art initiative The Floating Projects (2015). Until 2023, she taught at the School of Creative Media, the City University of Hong Kong.
She was awarded Artist of the Year (Media Art) 2017 by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, her project D-Normal/V-Essay (on-line video zine) with the Floating Projects Collective was awarded Ars Electronica’s “State of the Art(ists)” in 2022.
Instagram (IG): lindafpc
http://lindalai-floatingsite.com/content/content.html
On Linda Lai’s approach:
https://www.e-flux.com/notes/6783552/why-video-art-still-matters-essaying-with-sight-and-sound-as-experimental-action
For additional questions, please contact seminar@kurzfilmtage.de
Oberhausen, 5 November 2026
Press contact: Sabine Niewalda, Tel +49 (0)208 825-3073, niewalda@kurzfilmtage.de