CONGO: Eccentric, impromptu performances set in the warlord-controlled villages of the Democratic Republic of Congo that challenge the established conventions of humanitarian representation.
Community
SOUTH AFRICA: a remarkable synthesis of structure, texture, and authenticity exploring the triangular relationship between history, memory, and community storytelling.
INTERNATIONAL: Eleven artists reflect on what they learned during the pandemic, picking just one thing they would reimagine for the better in the future.
POLAND: Atmospheric images of a social, political, and economic landscape that has changed radically over the past sixty years.
BANGLADESH: A humanitarian photographer who not only documents injustice and inequity in the world, but also explores his own imperfection with poignant honesty.
UNITED KINGDOM: an insider’s sensitive depiction of a group of south London fighters who find self-discipline, confidence, and connectedness through martial arts.
USA: One woman’s experience of the stifling control of a patriarchal religious fundamentalism and the processes of artmaking that helped her escape.
BRAZIL: Turning a compassionate eye on rural and remote medicine to capture the kindness, dedication, and empathy of healthcare workers as they transcend the most challenging circumstances.
UNITED KINGDOM: Going beyond the clichés and prejudices about homelessness by facilitating each participant to create their own self-portrait.
USA: Past and present converse in an archive of American life shot from a refreshingly tangential perspective.
CHINA: Documentary images highlighting communities that, while they may seem outside of the mainstream in China, are in fact simply some of its constituents.
MEXICO: The fluidity of domestic intimacy explored through the lens of childhood imagination and transformational community ritual.
INTERNATIONAL: Nine photographic artists from across five continents reflect on what motivates them to create photographs.
AUSTRALIA: A contemporary story-teller who combines photography and words to synthesis rich and complex narratives of family, community and sexuality.
ROMANIA: a community of homeless people come together to find companionship, shelter and a degree of mutual sustainability in a network of tunnels under the city of Bucharest.
RUSSIA: Gently observed portraits of the people of Bryansk that touch on the mystery of everyday life.
ICELAND: Picturing the resilient lives and enduring landscapes of a small farming community in the East of Iceland caught between harsh reality and timeless myth.
CHINA: A fusion of theatre and photography that, with an eccentric magic, weaves together the light and dark of the human condition.
SOUTH AFRICA: Capturing the spirit of a new creative generation, fighting for gender equality and exposing the continuing plight of the working poor.
IRAN / AUSTRALIA: Poetically perceptive imagery that engages the layers of displacement, difference and marginality that define what it means to be ‘other’.
COLOMBIA: In addressing the trauma resulting from the ongoing multilateral armed conflict in her country, Erika Diettes focuses not on violence but on bearing witness to the grief of survivors.
AUSTRALIA: a remarkable synthesis of timeless Aboriginal wisdom and radically innovative printmaking that creates pictures of intense poetic beauty.
UNITED KINGDOM: Portraits exploring the transition from child to adult as it is expressed through modes of dress, social behaviour and body image.
ITALY: Elena Givone uses photography and storytelling to help young refugees imagine a better future – images to inspire hope in the child and compassion in the viewer.
AUSTRALIA: Alasdair Foster, a curator, researcher, and writer who draws on an array of experiences from around the world, offers his perspective on photography – and where it’s going next. Interview by Alexander Strecker.
INTERNATIONAL: Impressions of Christmas and the New Year through the kaleidoscopic lens of artists from Asia, the Americas, Europe and Oceania.
NEW ZEALAND: Ilan Wittenberg’s extensive catalogue of Auckland men captures the uniqueness and imperfection that lays bare the inhumanity of commercially idealised masculinity.
CHINA: Reflections on the meanings and value of family photo archives in traditional homes in Shanxi Province.
ITALY: Spending extended periods with poor and itinerant families, Ciro Battiloro discovers, beneath the domestic discomfort and social neglect, a tenacious humanity and a love that turns “despair into delicate sweetness”.
MEXICO: Dulce Pinzón creates latter-day visual fables that address real social issues: racial prejudice, low-paid workers, environmental damage.
USA: Kirk Crippens explores the tension between the American Dream of home and increasing precarity – gentrification, downsizing and foreclosure – but also the haven of the unorthodox.
VENEZUELA: Images evoking the powerful mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the southern Americas that emphasise the interdependence of humankind and Nature.
USA: Few recent cultural initiatives have had more impact in the world of photography than Houston FotoFest, with its multi-layered approach to the medium as a means to an end and not just an end in itself.
AUSTRALIA: An artist painting with light to create richly coloured and emotionally intensified images of the natural and human worlds.
BANGLADESH: Asia’s longest-running photo festival, founded on a powerful vision of social justice and driven by a tenacious dynamism, it forms one arm of a tripartite structure including a news picture agency and a media school.
RUSSIA: A festival that engages the viewer in a rich visual dialogue made vibrant by its openhearted warmth, aesthetic vigour, and intelligent enthusiasm for the medium.
BRAZIL: a festival pioneering the use of screen-based technologies to reach out from the metropolitan art institutions to connect with communities in the poorest districts of the urban margins: to engage, to educate and to empower.
CAMBODIA: With a focus on discovery, education and sharing, this festival and workshop program provides a generous and egalitarian environment in which to learn new skills, exchange ideas and establish new friendships.
NEW ZEALAND: Located on the rim of the Pacific, this is a festival of and by the people: stimulating creativity, encouraging participation, and celebrating the many and diverse expressions of human imagination.
AUSTRALIA: In a world that all too often seeks to segregate professionals from amateurs, celebrities from ordinary people, Head On provides an alternative based on mutual respect and a passion for photographic creativity.
THAILAND: With a focus on Asian documentary practice, this festival maintained its independence by building not only the event but also a new photography centre through the work and solidarity of photographers themselves.
ARGENTINA: One of the world’s longest running photographic festivals, Festival de la Luz it is both a celebration of photography as a means of enlightenment and an egalitarian meeting of diverse people and cultures.
UNITED KINGDOM: A festival that celebrates its sense of place and community while engaging the leading edge of technological possibility and international innovation.
BANGLADESH: A photographer with a strong social conscience and a deep concern for the welfare of the marginalised members of her society.
AUSTRALIA: Documenting the dysfunctional, the dispossessed, and the dogged hope that lingers amid the ashes of failure.