The artist
Olga — Master of Arts, painter and designer. She speaks four languages and has an exacting eye. She shapes how everything we make looks and decides which work makes it into the books.
Who we are
About KULTURA
KULTURA is an independent publishing house for European art, run by artists. We make hardcover books — photography, painting, illustration, and writing from across the continent, chosen with intent and built to last.
How KULTURA started
KULTURA began because we needed it to exist. Two of us — one painter, one engineer — kept watching extraordinary European work vanish into feeds days after it was made. There was no shortage of talent. There was a shortage of places to put it that would last.
So we started a publishing house. Not a magazine, not a feed, not an app. A series of hardcover books, each one a finished thing — bound, sequenced, weighty. Editions that an artist can hand to someone in twenty years and have them still mean what they meant the day they were printed.
What we believe
- Art belongs off the screen. The screen is a window — paper is a place.
- An algorithm can copy a picture. It cannot copy a book on your shelf.
- Europe makes work the world should see, and most of it never leaves the studio. We print it.
- We don't gatekeep on credentials. We gatekeep on the work.
- Print is slow, expensive, and final. That is the point.
How we work
Here is what happens between an artist hitting submit and an edition landing on a shelf.
- 01
Open call
For each edition we run an open call. Anyone based in Europe can submit, across the disciplines named in the brief. The brief, the dates, and the participation fee all live on the edition page.
- 02
Submission
You send us up to ten files — JPEG, PNG, TIFF, WebP, or PDF, fifty megabytes each — plus a short statement about the work. There is no portfolio review, no application essay, no committee. Just the work and a few facts.
- 03
Review and selection
We read every submission ourselves. Strong work is shortlisted, then revisited against the shape of the edition we are building. We try to reply within a week either way.
- 04
Selected artists
Artists who make the cut receive a participation offer and a payment link. After payment, you upload a final artwork file, a bio, a profile photo, and a short statement about what the work means to you. That is what gets typeset into the book.
- 05
Print and edition
We design the book around the work — sequence, layout, paper, binding. Once printed, the edition becomes part of the KULTURA catalog and each contributing artist receives copies.
Behind KULTURA
KULTURA is founded and led by a two-person editorial studio.
The engineer
Tamás — photographer and software engineer. He drives the technical side — how books are edited, typeset, and manufactured, and how everything you see on this site gets built.
Where this is going
Today you can order KULTURA editions directly from this site, and you'll find them across the major online bookstores. That's where we start, not where we stop.
Next, we want them on shelves — in museum shops and cultural institutions across Europe, where people already come to spend time with art. That's the goal: living European artists in the rooms built for looking, reaching the people who care most about the work.
We're also opening a newsroom soon — a place to follow what we're working on: updates from the studio, stories from the artists we publish, and writing about the work and the people behind it.
Operating language
All KULTURA editions are published in English, and our correspondence with artists is conducted in English. You're welcome to read this website in your own language, but applications, contracts, and the printed books themselves are English-only.
Get involved
Every edition starts with an open call. If you make work in Europe, we'd like to see it.
See open calls