Official Website: http://www.fotofestiwal.com
The 14th International Festival of Photography 2015 in Łodz is over. Almost 20 thousand people visited the festival’s center and Lodz-based galleries. Among them were artists Christopher Rauschenberg, Simon Norfolk and Carl De Keyzer and theorists and curators W.M. Hunt, Christina Capetillo, and Alison Nordström. Once again Łodz has been a place of international meetings.
Artists connected with curators, the audience with artists, the beginning photographers with veteran professionals, colleagues and art lovers. The themes and the profile of talks were dictated by the festival’s program of 45 exhibitions, night slides of the finalists’ works and Asian photography, photography workshops, authors’ meetings, discussions on travel photography, an auction of photography, photowalks and –a Portfolio Review with over 30 reviewers from all over the world, one of the most important in Europe –
The Festival started on May 28th in Art Inkubator. At 6 p.m. the results of the annual Grand Prix Fotofestiwal contestwere announced . The prize (10 thousand zl) went to Patrick Willocq for his project “I am Walé Respect Me” about the rituals of young mothers in Congo. The Rector of the Lodz University prize went to Anna Grzelewska for her “Julia Wannabe” project. Justyna Mielnikiewicz’s „Woman with a monkey – Caucasus in Short Notes and Photographs” project was awarded Photographic Publication of the Year.
65% of works were sold during the Collectors of Photography auction. Plenty of people visited the exhibitions of: Carl De Keyzer, Krzysztof Miller, Twoj Styl and the ones organized by the Film School in Lodz. The Film School organized 11 exhibitions, for example: the travel-themed group exhibition FLOW and the exhibition of the students, postgraduates and graduates’ works, from Robert Mainka to Wojtek Wieteska. Two new programs were particularly successful, the Discovery Show exhibition of Mario Macilau from Mozambique and the HIT THE ROAD discussion panel. Photographers Travel presenting different approaches to the ‘Hit the Road’ theme. Well-known photographers: Simon Norfolk (UK), Carl De Keyzer (BE) and Christopher Rauschenberg(US) presented their works and talked to reviewers, curators and the experts in photography. That panel was a kind of trailer for the next edition of Fotofestiwal which will be devoted to travel photography. An exhibition by Robert Rauschenberg’s exhibition –curated by Alison Nordström, the artistic director of Fotofestiwal 2016 and several other exhibitions will prove how unexpected that theme may be.
