Athens Photo Festival is the leading international festival of photography and related media in Southeastern Europe. Exploring critical issues relevant to our times, the festival attempts to bring together a range of different perspectives from emerging and established artists and photographers from all over the world with the aim to raise awareness and foster an understanding of contemporary culture and society through photography in all its forms. The Festival works within an international, national and local context, encompassing a variety of activities designed to reflect the diversity of contemporary photographic practices, and to create opportunities for exchange of ideas, artistic expression and international engagement.
The 2016 main program will take place from 9 June until 31 July 2016, at the Benaki Museum (Pireos St. Annexe). The exhibition program will be comprised of a series of solo and group exhibitions, presenting a wide spectrum of works selected through an international open call for proposals in combination with invited artists. At the core of the festival is a range of events, including international portfolio reviews, screenings, talks and discussions, workshops, and various community and participatory projects. In addition to the main venue-based program, the festival encourages local community involvement through satellite exhibitions in various locations in the city.
This year’s main theme, under the title [mis/dis]placed, is aimed at investigating how collective consciousness and individual identity and position are shaped, in relation to the fast-changing global situation, intertwining both politics and poetics. In particular, it is interested in raising questions about the prevailing notions of place and memory as fundamental elements of identity formation while reassessing the role that the means of visualizing can play within these concepts. Athens as an emblematic place of the current global situation provides a significant artistic and intellectual context where questions about the complexities of today’s world can be raised and discussed.
The festival continues to evolve with the times and looks forward to developing projects that open up new audiences for photography and exploring realms where photography intersects with other creative disciplines. At the same time, we work with partners across the creative and cultural industries in Greece, Europe and beyond. Athens Photo Festival is a member of the European Month of Photography (EMoP), a network comprised of photography festivals in 8 European capitals that aims to foster collaboration on joint projects within a European framework.
More info can be found here.
