Short Description
This is Gender: Law & Justice invites photographers to explore how gender shapes legal systems—both visible structures like laws, courts, and policing, and the less visible forces of bias, economic exclusion, and social stigma. We’re calling for photography that uncovers injustice and offers new ways of seeing justice, challenging systems shaped by capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy.
Law and justice have never been neutral. In today’s volatile political landscape, legal systems reflect the power of those who shape them. Laws can serve as tools of liberation or instruments of control. Justice depends on who is visible, who is heard, and who is silenced. Across the world, those demanding gender justice are met with legal crackdowns, while those in power manipulate the law to maintain dominance.
But justice is not confined to courts. It is contested in the streets, on social media, in homes, and in history books. Justice unfolds in village councils, community gatherings, and international tribunals. It exists in the quiet resilience of those navigating oppressive legal systems and in the loud defiance of those who refuse to accept them.
We encourage works that interrogate the following questions:
- Institutional
- How do courts, police, and governments uphold or deny justice?
- Who has access to legal representation, and who is excluded?
- Environmental & Spatial
- Where does justice happen? In a courtroom, a protest, a detention centre, a refugee camp?
- How do borders, surveillance, or urban planning shape who is protected and who is punished?
- Social Relations
- How does justice (or injustice) play out in families, workplaces, or communities?
- Who enforces norms, and who resists them?
- Personal & Embodied
- What does it mean to carry the weight of the law?
- How does legal status shape daily life?
- Who moves freely, and who lives under constant threat?
- Radical Visions
- What does a truly just world look like? How do we redesign legal systems that centre rights, respect, rehabilitation, fairness, compassion and care?
- How do feminist, indigenous, and decolonial approaches to law offer new ways forward?
Eligibility
This is Gender: Law & Justice is open to photographers of all backgrounds and experience levels. We welcome all forms of photographic work, including but not limited to:
- Documentary & Photojournalism – Capturing real-world events, activism, and lived experiences.
- Portraiture – Exploring identity, representation, and power through the lens of the individual.
- Conceptual & Fine Art Photography – Using staged, symbolic, or abstract imagery to challenge perceptions of justice.
- Experimental & Alternative Processes – Including collage, mixed media, archival interventions, and other hybrid photographic techniques.
- Street & Candid Photography – Unfiltered moments of justice, protest, and everyday resistance.
We encourage work that pushes the boundaries of visual storytelling and challenges traditional representations of justice.
Submission Requirements
- A brief narrative on the significance of the image to the themes of the competition.
- Where and when the submission was created.
- Short artist biography.
- Acceptance of the This is Gender Terms and Conditions.
How to Apply
Online Application
Program Benefits & Awards
By submitting your work, you’ll gain access to expert critique, international exposure, and exciting opportunities to connect with a global network of creatives, while helping to shape new perspectives and understanding on the intersection of law, justice, and gender. Winning images will receive a £500 cash prize!
Entry Fee
None
Location
United Kingdom
Timeline
- Application Deadline: 22 July 2025
Website Link: https://thisisgender.global5050.org/law-justice-competition/
