EXP.21 Festival: A Glimpse of the Experimental Photography Future

Nothing’s stopping the global experimental photography community as it readies itself to launch the International Festival on Experimental Photography at the Institut d'Estudis Fotogràfics de Catalunya and at the Cívic Pati Llimona Center, Barcelona, in January 2021.

We covered and collaborated with co-director Pablo Giori with the biggest film swap festival last year and even got a hold on him for an interview now it’s time for more.

To recapitulate, the festival created an Experimental Photography Manifest with the ideas of 44 artists. This year, Giori hinted that they are working on the ideas of the “Minotaur”, “Centaur” and the “Faun”. The hybrid nature of these creatures will speak up about the future of experimental photography born from mixing and sharing.

“Our main idea is to create something like a summer camp based on experimental photography to get together all these small communities to create a big one, a home, a place to share and learn with everyone.”

The state of experimental photography is globally diverse, according to Giori. Interestingly, artists from certain countries have shown preference on certain techniques — Solarigraphy is popular in Poland, while the cyanotype process is booming in Brazil, for an undefined reason. Meanwhile, the more known international communities have organized systems especially for darkroom photography, wet collodion, pinhole, or instant photography. Giori mentioned, " if one [member] is coming to Barcelona, normally the rest of them will take the plane and come to the festival."

The stories will also be coming from a myriad of experiences as the organization prides itself on equal gender representation. Fairness in the experimental photography scene further opens the platforms for new, fresh ideas, debates, and dialogue. Currently, they are in the process of inviting artists to represent more than 20 experimental techniques — making sure each will be equally. represented. Therefore, 20 men and 20 women artists all over the world. For Giori, experimental photography is about to become a communal, interactive process:

“I think that the future of experimental photography is shared, it will give a new experience with the image as it must be created collectively and shared with everyone. The future is not anymore an individualistic practice but a place and a time to share with everyone based on equality and respect. For me, the experiment as a philosophy in the future because it is not the result of someone alone in their own world but is a new world of people creating together, sharing, and dancing while looking for inspiration, learning from others, and exchanging experiences. Photography in the future will not be a result, but a process.”

The festival is a guarantee for a good, educative and fun time as creatives of the experimental arts are about to find their kindred spirits.

The festival will run for four days from 14-17 January 2021. For more information, visit the website, and Instagram for more details. You may also e-mail them for inquiries through experimentalphotofestival@gmail.com.

2020-07-12 #culture #news #exp-21