Dutch Photography Experience project / autumn 2012

24 сентября 2012

Dutch Photography Experience project / autumn 2012

Dutch Photography Experience

Dutch Photography Experience Project is a series of events presenting contemporary Dutch photography in Russia.

Dutch photography practitioners often define themselves using a rather broad term – ‘artist’. Though photography may be the main medium or material of their projects , it does not in any way conflict with limitless possibilities of expanding it into the realm of installation, performance, collage, text and even gardening. Experimental nature, artistic freedom, irony, dialogue with traditional esthetics, and constant challenging of the medium’s limits – a game with no rules – that is what characterizes Dutch photography today.

Between the 12-16 of October, workshops and presentations by Dutch artists will take place in St. Petersburg in the frameworks of the Dutch Consulate’s program «The Window on the Netherlands». This will signal the launch of the initiative.

Luuk Wilmering will offer to operate on an image and create a photograph without a photograph («Don’t panic if you forgot your camera! (or: how to make a photo with a pair of scissors)»). Martine Stig will make one irrevoably lost in understanding the connection between reality and staging («People and the public space. Playing with reality»). The workshops are aimed at emerging photographers who are interested in developing their artistic experience. The participants are chosen according to portfolios and motivations letters. Submission is open till the 5^th of October.

Developing the discussion on the forms photography takes today, Evgenia Sveshinsky (freelance curator/foundation Paradox) will deliver an open lecture «[Multi]media stories: web as a source of inspiration and a presentation platform» and Carolin von Courten (PhD researcher/Leiden University) will talk about the medium’s tendency to appear in several dimentions — «Dutch photography today: between 3D and 2D».

Still from Play (2010, HDV 10”) Martine Stig, courtesy Motive Gallery, Brussels

Parallel to the launch of the fall-2012 education programme, online magazine on photography «Ф.» will start running a column on Dutch photography. The year-long series of publications (in collaboration with Amsterdam-based Foam Magazine) will help the audience to better understand the context of contemporary photography on both visual/experiential and analytical levels.

Once started in October 2012 the program of lectures, presentations and workshops will continue within a year and will be finalized by the core event of the project – the presentation of the exhibition Undercover, a research exhibition of photographic publications, and accompanying educational events. The show will take place in the frameworks of the year of the Netherlands in Russia, from the 28th of November 2013 till the 13th of January 2014, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Erarta.

The educational and exhibition components of Dutch Photography Experience target both wide and professional audiences aiming to familiarise Russian public with Dutch photography, institutions, authors and the ways they use and explore the medium and its limits.

Dutch Photography Experience is initiated by St. Petersburg-based foundation FotoDepartament and produced in collaboration with ProMu and with the generous support of SICA, Mondriaan fund, Wilhelmina Janssen fund, the Netherlands Consulate-General, St. Petersburg and the Netherlands Institute, St. Petersburg.