G L O B A L C H A L L E N G E SI N R E L A T I O N T O P H O T O G R A P H Y,

C O N T E M P O R A R Y A R T A N D S O C I A L M E D I A

W H E N 26 August 2016 8:30 AM – 17:00 PM

W H E R E CPH Conference, DGI-byen, Copenhagen

P R I C E 200 kr. normal price / 100 kr. student priceFor tickets see Billetto.dk

The symposium Global Challenges unfolds a variety of positions within photojournalism, documentary and contemporary art and is part of The International Photo Biennale 2016. Global Challenges is organised and connected to the exhibitions Bending the Frame at Fotografisk Center, Cities and Memory at Brandts and Against the Grain at Galleri Image.

P R O G R A M M E

08:30 Registration and coffee

09:00 Welcome and introduction by moderator Sarah GiersingWelcome by the Photobiennale organisers: Anna Krogh - Brandts, Kristine Kern -Fotografisk Center and Beate Cegielska - Galleri Image

First session 09:10 Mette Sandbye10:00 Irina Chmyreva10:20 Sunil Gupta

10:40 Coffee break

11:00 Fred Ritchin11:55 Tina Enghoff

12:15 Lunch

Second session13:00 Louise Wolthers13:45 John Fleetwood14:05 Christian Danielewitz and Anu Ramdas14:25 Charlotte Præstegaard

14:45 Coffee break

Third session15:00 Gideon Mendel 15:20 Rasmus Vestergaard15:40 Jørgen Dehs16:00 Pierre Terdjman and Benjamin Girette16:20 Moderator and opponent closing remarks

17:00 Opening of the exhibition Bending The Frame at Fotografisk CenterYou are invited to participate in the opening of the exhibition Bending The Frame at Fotografisk Center after the symposium is over.

SPEAKERS & ABSTRACTS

Keynote speakers

Mette Sandbye (DK)Professor of photography studies and department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

Title: Danish art photography on a global, political scene

Abstract: In 2015 Swedish-Danish photographer Kent Klich completed his trilogy of photography books on contemporary Gaza and the conflict (or war) between Israel and Gaza since 2008: Gaza Photo Album (2009), Killing Time (2013), Black Friday (2015). In these books he uses the whole spanof photographic representation forms: classical b/w reportage, large format landscape color photography, appropriated family photographs, private mobile photo videos, airial photography, maps as well as reports and fact material from Amnesty International and Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Inspired by “non-representational” theory, as well as affect theory, I want to present and discuss how Klich manages to depict Gaza as a “place in process” constructed by personal experience (of trauma) and memory as well as hard-core political facts, and how he thereby both challenges traditional news coverage as well as art practices. In the second half of my talk I will contextualize Klich’s work with a handful of other Danish art projects occupied with ”political” subjects in contemporary society such as colonialism (Pia Arke and Julie Edel Hardenberg), Islam and cultural identity (Lina Hashim and Trine Søndergaard), LGBT rights (Charlotte Haslund-Christensen). The overall aim of the talk is to discuss how the spectre between documentary and artprovides photography with a specific opportunity to address difficult subject matter between the personal and the political.

Fred Ritchin (US)Dean of the School at ICP (International Center of Photography)

Title: BENDING THE FRAME: In pursuit of meaningful media

Abstract: What do we want from this media revolution? Not just where is it bringing us—where do we want to go? Since all media inevitably change us, how do we want to be changed? In the digital era the belief in visual media as automatically credible is over, for better and for worse. Rather than routinely indicate what is, visual media increasingly point to what might be—with the potential for much deeper understanding, as well as for a particularly subversive simulation. How, in today’s media environment roiled by branding, spectacle, and image wars, can strategies be reconceived in pursuit of more meaningful media?

Louise Wolthers (S)Manager, Researcher & Curator at The Hasselblad Foundation.

Title: Countering Surveillance through Photography, Art, and Activism

Abstract: Historically, surveillance is closely linked to the photographic medium, and contemporary technologies and practices of surveillance are highly informed by the digitization of photography and other lens-based media. Even as current means of monitoring and data collection are increasingly post-photographic as well as ‘post-panoptic’, visual notions of overview, (in)visibility, andtransparency are still paramount in the evermore complex negotiations of surveillant power and control. This is why visual theory, art and photographic practices offer valuable contributions to the research and debates on surveillance. In order to grapple with both the discriminatory challenges and the empowering opportunities in our multiveillant society, we need a nuanced understanding of visuality but also a non-conventional approach to representation. Focussing on developments since the turn of the millennium this talk will discuss recent examples of surveillance and counter-surveillance in dialogue with key works by photographers, artists and related theorists.

Theoretical presentations

Irina Chmyreva (RU)PhD, Art-director, PhotoVisa

Title: Escape In / Escape From the CITY Reflection of contemporary urbanite in Russia about the Locus

Abstract: Cities in Russia increased in last 100 years. Each of the concepts of city development was supported and announced as a positive one during its own time. Later the relative and negative effects of the same model were discovered. The first in last century was urbanization in time of Russian Empire. Multi-national character of Russia reflected in the new cities construction process. Not in the first generation of urbanites, but once the descendants ask themselves about ancestors, their roots. The discovery of national identity by city inhabitants is covered with the project of Andrey Ivanov. He depicts the symbols of national identity drawn on the walls of living areas. The second wave of urbanization of Russia started after social revolution and civil war in 1920s. Many villagers run to cities, but that process had double meaning: part of the people tried to be lost in big cities because of new state policy of pressure, the second part had ideological motivation – to build new world in communes (the model of city likes a big one-ideology and one aim commune). These period of Russian urbanism reflected by two artists, Nikita Pirogov and Mariya Kozhanova. Mariya Kozhanova makes photographs of cosplayers, of those young people who search for their own world after the destruction of Soviet ideology. Nikita Pirogov based his personal story in a discussion with the photo diary of his grandpa, one from the first generation of professionals, of urbanites born in city. After Second World War was a great time of hopes and believes, especially in space development. The idea of life in cosmos faced to social stagnation in country in 1970s and 1980s. The collapse of hopes and feeling of eternal continuation are presented in Alexey

Kuzmichev’s very subjective installation. He describes: “we are presenting on the Earth, moving withcosmic speed through universe, nothing changes in our day by day life and at the same time every day we make a great journey.” The last period of urbanization is going right now, it is a period of post-post industrialism. Old factories, the heart of old cities, became to be re-developed into social and apartment areas. This shown in Svyatoslav Ponomarev’s photo-based work. The deconstruction of car plant in Moscow depicts as an apocalyptic process with references to destruction of Babylon tower.

John Fleetwood (ZA)Director of Photo: and curator at the Cities and Memory exhibition at Brandts

Title: The photographer in the frame: Acts of South African photography

Abstract: ‘Struggle photography’ marks the history of South Africa and South African photography ofthe 1980’s and 1990’s. At the time, for some South African photographers, the act of photography was understood as a complex political assertion; a certain kind of ‘embeddedness’. It allowed for a proximity that to some extent overcame class and race differences in the field.Many of the younger generation of contemporary South African photographers deal with similar assertions and acts of identities, histories and imaginaries. The dual role of witnessing the actuality and of placing and positioning themselves in relationship to socio-political changes and shifts in the role of the medium of photography is foregrounded in their work.

Charlotte Præstegaard (DK)Postdoc, magister artium, History of Art, Dep. for the Study of Culture, Univ. of Southern Denmark

Title: Contemporary photography beyond the picture

Abstract: Throughout history ground breaking events have been summarized by iconic photographic images and our collective memories have been formed by these concise images. This position of the individual iconic image has been challenged both by the enormous amounts of photos being circulated on social media everyday and by the hybrid and constantly expanding use of the photographic medium in contemporary art. In this talk Præstegaard Schwartz ask how we can relate to burning issues of todays societies through the photographic medium, which is not any longer only to be experienced as a picture. Furthermore she asks what kind of theoretical language and approach can be developed to embrace this changed position of photography within contemporary art.

Rasmus Vestergaard (DK)Director DIAS Digital Interactive Art Space and Independent Curator/Consultant - digital art

Title: Let’s get real - on art and reality / art and society

Abstract: Digital platforms, user-focused electronics and media constitute a digital apparatus aroundus, which are molding our perception and understanding of the world. But how to generate new meaning through this digital apparatus at a time in history of the media evolution (i.e. in a critical post-digital perspective), in which we on a daily basis experience that our freedom of choosing the path, that we desire are determined by the overall frameworks of digital platforms, software, and apps. One solution is to focus on the creative potential in rethinking the dynamics between location,space and digital art/culture. The presentation will frame the conceptual ideas behind DIAS, more general notions about digital art in an urban context and outline some possibilities and aspects of this practice. What happens when a public “non-space” – a still functional train station i.e. a transit area – is transferred into an interactive art space? What are the consequences for the art works and for the scenography of everyday life? Will a new type of artistic significance be created together withan audience outside the usual institutional framework? And further, the series of exhibitions, talks, and educational events, that DIAS presents during the year, will qua a re-location of a “normal” whitecube practice to an urban setting immediately raise considerations about how curatorial practice engages in the surrounding world. And furthermore, about how a public platform can create alternative frames for contemplation: what are the strategies for articulating themes and launching discursive thinking methods, which can generate “truth” and take part in the sharpening of our world-perception?

Jørgen Dehs (DK)Philosopher and author

Title: Melancholy and Beauty: Reflections on Photography as an Object of Meditation

Abstract: Melancholy has made a career in theories of photography. Its position is related to the intervention with the phenomenon of time, which is part of the very impulse to take a photo. The contribution will make a variation of the subject in order to point to the significant role played by photography in renewing the close connection between melancholy and beauty - well known from different traditions of music, lyrics, and older visual arts. References to the works of Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes will be part of the discussion.

Artists’ presentations

Tina Enghoff (DK)Photographer

Title: THE NEED OF COLLABORATION

Abstract: The importance of crucial help and support in my projects. The importance of outreach in connection to working methods - and can contemporary photography change something or at least open up to new ways of relating to society.

Christian Danielewitz (DK) and Anu Ramdas (DK)Artists participating at the exhibition Against the Grain at Galleri Image a part of the Photobiennale

Title: Rare Earth: Beyond the iPhone

Abstract: With a point of departure in their exhibition Against the Grain, Anu Ramdas and Christian Danielewitz will talk about their research on the environmental impact of rare earth mining, and how they work with radioactive material as an imaging agent.

Gideon Mendel (ZA) Photographer

Title: Drowning World- The Elements

Abstract: This presentation explores my Drowning World project, illustrating how the its various components have grown, mutated and developed as I travelled to flood zones in thirteen countries over the last nine years. Beginning with its central narrative of the Submerged Portraits series I trackhow elements like the Floodlines and Watermarks have emerged and taken on their own momentum, along with the ‘Water Chapters’, the video component of the endeavor. I will discuss how the work invites reflection on our relationship with the natural world, our attachments to physical objects and belongings and shared experience across geographic, class and cultural divides.

Pierre Terdjman (FR) and Benjamin Girette (FR)Photojournalists

Title: #Dysturb: Community Engagement Through Images

Abstract: #Dysturb are a group of freelance photographers, who take current international photojournalism to the streets. The primary goal of #Dysturb is to make news stories accessible to the general public by pasting large format photographs on the walls of city hubs. Independent from the restrictions of conventional news publishing channels, we create discussion around current issues whilst also developing community engagement by publishing this imagery on social platforms.

Sunil Gupta (IN)Artist participating at the Cities and Memory exhibition at Brandts

Title: Queer Migrations: Family, Identity and Place

Abstract: Sunil Gupta explores issues of cultural displacement or transposition, investigating the theme of individual identity as it exists within the broader context of social mores and conventions. Mr. Malhotra’s Party visualizes the latest queer space in Delhi through a series of portraits of people who identify themselves as “queer”. As they look directly into the camera, they are willing to “come out”—There are no gay bars in India but parties do happen and the way they get away with it is to post a notice saying that it’s a private party. One day it was called Mr Malhotra’s Party.

Moderator

Sarah Giersing (DK)Research Librarian at The Royal Library: the National Museum of Photography

Opponent

Peter Ole Pedersen (DK)Assistant professor, School of Communication and Culture - Art History, Aarhus University.