Written by Eleonora Milner
Athens Photo Festival, the leading international festival of photography in Southeastern Europe, officialy opened last week.
The Festival, under the title “Reframe Memory”, is curated by Manolis Moresopoulos and organised by the Hellenic Centre for Photography. The 2015 theme explores the relationship between past and present, both experimental and mainstream, bringing together a wide range of international artistic positions.
The main exhibitions take place from 3 June through 26 July 2015, at the Benaki Museum (Pireos St. Annexe), featuring emerging and established artists from all over the world. Inside the main building of the Festival we suggest to see Futuristic Archaeology by Daesung Lee, Family Stuff by Huang Qingjun, Hikari by David Favrod, 21 22 23 by Gidon Levin, A Moveable Beast by Helge Skodvin, Indefinitely by Katrin Koenning, Letters for Two, and No-One Else by Ksenia Yurkova. Don’t miss the international group exhibition Afterlife with The Epilogue by Laia Abril, Heaven’s Gain by Justin Maxon and 19.06_26.08.1945 by the italian photographer Andrea Botto. 19.06_26.08.1945 was produced in memory of his grandfather’s journey home across Europe at the end of the Second World War: from Nazi prisoner-of-war camps in North Germany to his home in Tuscany.
Don’t miss the group exhibition “Young Greek Photographers 2015” . Young Greeks under the economic crisis by Konstantinos Kartelias (who has been featured on our print issue, with a portrait of the greek actor Themis Panou) and Multicultural by Katerina Petroutsou are very good ones.
The Festival introduced a new specific exhibition dedicated to the form of book. A selection of over 370 photobooks is displayed, including photobooks independently or commercially published and distributed, handmade, self-published, book dummies, exhibition catalogues, zines and limited edition photography books, etc.
Check it out the list of the photobooks here.
In addition to the main venue don’t miss the satellite exhibitions around the city of Athens, like “Occupy Atopos #RenHang” by the Chinese photographer Ren Hang, (from April 29 to June 10 2015 at “Atopos cvc ”) or the international group exhibitions “[Past] looking [Past]” and “Frames and framing” (from May 28 to June 21 2015 at “metamatic:taf ”). See the exhibition Re: View 015 at Melina Cultural Centre, which hosts the photographic work of 27 emerging photographers, and the exhibition Borderline at House of Cyprus. At the core of the programme is a range of special events, including portfolio reviews, talks series, screenings, workshops, performances and participatory projects.
Check it out the program of Athens Photo Festival here.
Athens Photo Festival
3 June through 26 July 2015.
