Congress of the European Society of
Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
Science and art go hand-in-hand and ESCMID Global brings forward the creativity of the infectious diseases and clinical microbiology community through the ESCMID Global Art Gallery. Learn more about the creative minds from around the world and explore their artistic visions in past art books and prepare for the next call for artwork.
While bacteria are often imagined as threats, countless species work with us and around us: shaping the human microbiome, supporting digestion and immunity, protecting plants, enriching soils, fermenting foods, cycling nutrients, and helping ecosystems adapt to environmental change. The theme of the 2027 ESCMID Global Art Gallery is “Invisible collaborators” and artists are invited to explore the unseen bacterial partners that quietly sustain life, health and resilience.
This theme asks submitters to make the invisible visible. How might the concepts of microbial cooperation, mutual dependence or the delicate balance between humans, animals, plants and their bacterial communities be portrayed? Artworks may engage with beneficial bacteria in medicine, agriculture, food production, environmental restoration, climate resilience or everyday life.
Imaginative, scientific, abstract, or personal interpretations that reveal bacteria not only as organisms, but as essential collaborators in a shared, interconnected world are all welcome.
Submission opens on 01 December 2026 and closes on 31 December 2026 at midnight CET.
Submitters are requested to send in their work in one of the following categories:
You can view all of the submitted pieces of original art from around the ESCMID community, some of which will also be on display onsite during ESCMID Global 2026. Congratulations to the winners, whose work highlighted the theme and called for action on the topic of Food Safety!
1st Place
Inner Garden
by Csilla Antal
2nd Place
The Birth of Mercury
by Sertaç Küçükkaya
3rd Place
Do You Trust Your Food?
by Clara Jensen
Best Agar Art
Sweets: Microbes love them too!
by Katarzyna Kania
Most Toxic Work
Ash Drawing: Claviceps (Ergot)
Anna Dumitriu
Best Photography
It's not what it seems
Angel Ros Die
For the 2026 art gallery, ESCMID collaborated with The Pathologist to highlight the cross-over of the infectious disease and pathology specialities. Submitters had the opportunity to be featured in both the Art Gallery and the 2026 Pathology Captures showcase. You can see the highlights from their showcase under the theme of “Food Safety” in the art book and here online.
Winners and art submitted by our members can be viewed in the previous editions of Art Books.
