12/05/2022
Photocitizens is back! Due to Covid-19 we've had to reschedule this wonderful international collaboration. The theme for this leg is PLACE. We are happy to confirm that Photocitizens 2022 will have ten partners (Spain, France, UK, Vietnam, Lebanon, USA, Italy, Greece, Aotearoa-New Zealand and Ireland). Exhibitions will commence from September 2022 until July 2023. Image Dariusz Konkiewicz.
“It is by knowing where you stand that you grow able to judge where you are.”
Eudora Welty
PLACE
For many of those on the planet fortunate enough to own a passport and afford a ticket, the ability to travel and to experience new places has been central to work and leisure. Travel has been a rite of passage or reward, the physical embodiment of corporate takeover, connection for extended families, a gateway to new employment, a fresh start and adventure. For those fleeing war, famine, persecution or justice, the ability to change places has been a necessity, not a luxury. Since its inception, photography has been the medium through which we have recorded these experiences, sharing them through photographic exhibitions, books, prints and now on the many online platforms we scroll through.
However, since March 2020, COVID-19 has literally changed the face of our planet. Between 11 March 2020, when the W.H.O declared COVID-19 a pandemic, and 22 February 2021, nearly 105,000 movement restrictions were implemented around the world (IOM, 2021a).
Migration flows to OECD countries are estimated to have fallen by 46 per cent in the first half of 2020; a historical low. (OECD, 2020a). Birth, death and population demographics for years to come will register this seismic global event, and at this moment the vast majority of us are not going anywhere.
So, what does it mean for you as citizens and photographers, to be exactly where you are? The international Festival Photocitizens 2022 asks you to reflect on your relationship to Place. This relationship may have significantly altered during the course of the pandemic, perhaps becoming more important in some way. Place can mean roots, cultural connection, home and family. But place can also confine, exclude, isolate and intimidate. Your image may help us to understand something of your life or the life of those around you. It might communicate something precious or perilous, remembered, imaginary, or absolute. You may choose to directly reflect on your experience of place through the pandemic, or that may be a secondary or invisible theme in your work.
Whatever your response may be, we are asking you to communicate this, your unique relationship to Place, using any kind of camera or lens-less process that has a strong relationship to photographic practice.
