inspired by The subversive eye
About the Contest:
The Dalí’s special exhibit, The Subversive Eye: Surrealist and Experimental Photography from the David Raymond Collection, explores photography’s vital role as a Surrealist medium. For Surrealists and the experimental photographers they inspired, the camera became more than just a tool—it was a way to unlock visual poetry and see the world through an entirely new lens. Surrealism encouraged the discovery of unexpected and dreamlike moments, urging artists to find the “surreal” in everyday life.
In the spirit of surrealism, we invite you to participate in our contest by capturing the “surprisingly surreal.” Surrealism exists all around us, and we encourage you to find moments that feel dreamlike or otherworldly—an interesting twist of light, a new perspective, an unexpected pairing and beyond—and share them with us.
Debuting in relation to the Surrealist movement’s (Paris,1920s) literary production, photography came to define a range of avant-garde practices worldwide. With a dizzying array of tactics, including multiple exposure, unusual perspectives, cropping, photocollage and solarization, Surrealists rapidly made the medium their own, and their procedures radiated throughout Western and Eastern Europe, the Americas and Japan. Notable artists include Eileen Agar, Hans Bellmer, Brassaï, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Robert Capa, Georges Hugnet, Clarence John Laughlin, Dora Maar, Lee Miller, Lucia Moholy, Osamu Shiihara, Man Ray and Wols.
The exhibition explores themes of transformation, urban mysteries, the visible woman, the enigma of the ordinary, automatic sculptures and poetic objects—key elements that define surrealist experimental photography. For The Dalí’s Surprisingly Surreal Photography Contest, we invite you to push the boundaries of the expected and discover the surreal in your own surroundings.
finalists:
Below are our finalists. Click each photo to enlarge.
Shirani Bolle, The Birthday Party 1
Céline Pinget, Body Language
Oana Stanciu, The Kiss
Surprisingly Surreal Photo Contest Public Voting
Shirani Bolle
The Birthday Party 1
Digital photography, crochet, punch needle and embroidery
Limerick, Republic of Ireland
The Birthday Party 1 is from a series of 4 stylized photographs created and shot by me. The photographs are a character driven vision of a monster like being celebrating a birthday with a young child. Set in a time that appears both futuristic and vintage, the work explores the meaning of time and examines how the past is always present in the now, through our genetics and the ancestral trauma held within our bodies.
The work is deeply personal as it refers to my own childhood being raised by an undiagnosed autistic Holocaust survivor and a Sri Lankan immigrant but also my own parenting experiences as a recently diagnosed autistic woman. It examines how as parents our intentions may not always match our capacity as people and how we may unintentionally perpetuate the same problems for our children ultimately creating a society that never changes. The child within the photographs is a representation of myself but she is also my own daughter suggesting that as a species we recreate the person who came before us but with minuscule changes which plays with our sense of being an independent individual and creates a sense of oneness. The monster suit is made using techniques such as crochet, embroidery and Punch needle, with materials such as wool yarn, repurposed saris and old jewelry and references Sri Lankan devil dance costumes. These types of costumes and rituals were once used in Sri Lanka combining ancient ayurvedic concepts of disease causation and psychological manipulation to cure physical and mental illness.
Céline Pinget
Body Language
Photography
Berlin, Germany
At first you just see a body.
At first you just see a hand.
But at the end, all you see it’s me.
I remember taking a self-portrait and realized how my body looks like my hand. So, I decided to take a picture of my hand.
Oana Stanciu
The Kiss
Photography
Edinburgh, Scotland
My art practice combines performance, photography and moving image where I use my body, different objects and environments to create surreal and subtly distorted self-portraits. The kiss is part of a larger series of self portraits called “”Stai în banca ta / Behave”” where I altered items of furniture to turn them into wearable sculptures. For this image I altered a table top by cutting holes into it, allowing my arms to pass through and partially concealing my body to create the illusion of two people interacting.
Furniture surrounds us in our homes, like silent observers of our lives. These objects carry memories, like cemeteries or homes for people’s stories, yet they are often taken for granted, inanimate and functional, and when they don’t serve their purpose or are not in trend, they get replaced. “Stai în banca ta” is a common expression in Romanian which translates as “Stay at your desk”, meaning to behave or know your place. I draw a parallel here with furniture, envisaging a world where these objects can break free from our expectations of them, coming to life and merging with human forms to create surreal creatures that live and breathe and move, awakening our imagination to see things differently.
How it works:
- Create an original photograph inspired by surreal experimental photography. Accepted materials are digital print, gelatin silver print, photocollage and poem collage.
- Upload your original photograph and description below by Jan 13, 2025. Please submit files as jpgs (2MB or less). One submission per person is accepted.
- All entries will be juried by a panel of Dalí Museum staff members, narrowing the submissions to three (3) finalists, and posted on TheDali.org by January 27, 2024.
- Public voting will run January 27 – February 24, 2025 on TheDali.org.
- Winners will be contacted and announced by March 17, 2025. The first-place winner will receive the grand prize (including Museum admission tickets and merchandise from The Dalí Museum Store). The second and third place winners will receive individual prizes of merchandise from The Dalí Museum Store.
- Following the contest, a selection of submissions will be included in an online exhibition on TheDali.org.
Entry Requirements & Judging Criteria
The photography submitted must be original, created by the submitter. Art will be judged on the following criteria: originality, skill/technique, composition, concept and lighting.
Eligibility Requirements
The contest is open to residents of the 50 United States and its territories, as well as international entries, who are at least 18 years old at the time of entry. All entries must be original, created by the entrant and cannot have been previously published, won another competition or contest or been used for advertising or promotional purposes. Each entrant may submit only one (1) artwork and must be submitted as a digital image in the following format: jpg (2MB or less) by Monday, January 13, 2025. By entering this contest, you grant The Dalí the right to use and share submitted photo(s) on our social media platforms and website. We will credit the photographer when sharing the photo, but participants should be aware that their entries may be featured publicly. No purchase is necessary to enter or win. The contest has no affiliation with Facebook, Instagram or any other third-party platform. We reserve the right to change these rules at any time.
Image Banner: Jaroslv Rössler (Czech, 1902-1990). Multiple Exposure of a Woman, Early 1930s, Gelatin silver print, Collection of David Raymond & Kim Manocherian.