DER GREIF is a Munich-based photography platform and magazine that operates on a fundamentally collaborative model. The project began as an open-submission platform for photographers worldwide — a democratic space where emerging and established practitioners could share their work alongside one another, judged on the quality of the images rather than the reputation of the photographer. This egalitarian approach has made DER GREIF one of the most respected independent photography platforms in Europe.
The magazine editions are curated from the submissions, creating publications that feel genuinely diverse — not in the marketing sense but in the visual sense, bringing together work from different countries, traditions, and perspectives that would never appear side by side in a conventional photography publication. Guest curators and editors are invited to shape individual issues, ensuring that each edition has a distinct character while maintaining the platform's commitment to openness and discovery.
The name — German for "the griffin," a mythological creature that combines the body of a lion with the head and wings of an eagle — suggests a publication that is itself a hybrid: part magazine, part community, part curatorial project, and wholly committed to the idea that the most interesting photography is being made by people you have not yet heard of.