Photobook Week Aarhus 2022

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Photobook Week Aarhus 2022

From October 27, 2022 13:00 to October 30, 2022 17:00

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Posted by Galleri Image

Photobook Week Aarhus 2022

The ninth edition of our festival Photobook Week Aarhus will take place from 27–30 October 2022. The festival will include a wide range of exciting exhibitions, talks, book market, tours, and book presentation.

Read the full program at photobookweek.org

Photobook Week Aarhus 2022: Off Balance 
In late 2021 the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York sent a small, but decisive message: “At MoMA, we believe in the essential role of the photobook” and went on to explain the museum’s intention to play a “vital role” in this development, given that “the photobook has never been so essential as an element of photographic creativity”. As an important player in the field of photobooks, Photobook Week Aarhus (PWA) has always been dedicated to further exposing this important medium and for this reason it is our pleasure to announce this year’s theme PWA: Off Balance, 27–30 October 2022.

Off Balance is an attempt to cope with the imbalance of our contemporary condition. Climate change pressuring a possible catastrophe for humanity, the unsustainable gap between rich and poor, plastic pollution and the drastic decrease of biodiversity, and the first pandemic in over a century. These are examples of a world with complicated issues that need to be addressed but are constantly confronted with political divisions and economic interests. With the theme Off Balance, PWA brings the important photobook medium directly into the twisted realities of our current context. Besides the central festival theme, we will also showcase other themes such as Books on Books on Books, which have shaped an often-critiqued canon of publications, and the show NO! Boris Lurie, Sam Goodman, Stanley Fisher, and NO!art, which will be shown at HEART - Herning Art Museum. 

Our regional focus will be on Canada with guest curator Louis Perrault, and a special focus on the books of Edward Burtynsky, who has been working on environmental issues for more than three decades. This year we also present a special regional focus with an exhibition about photobooks from Ukraine curated by Kateryna Radchenko, highlighting the country's art and culture in order to provide insight into a country that is currently at the centre of global politics, but which has not been widely explored or discussed in Denmark. 

This year we also present a special third regional focus with an exhibition about photobooks from Ukraine. We wish to highlight the country's art and culture in order to provide insight into a country that is currently at the centre of global politics, but which has not been widely explored or discussed in Denmark. 

We envision Photobook Week Aarhus 2022 as an open and inclusive event that underlines the urgency for action, and the roles that art might play in the process of acceptance, grief, and collaborative action in the most important issues of our time.

Photobook Week Aarhus is a collaborative effort by Galleri Image and the Aarhus School of Architecture. Read more at photobookweek.org

PWA 2022: Off Balance
Dates: 27-30 October 2022
Venues: Kunsthal Galleri Image, Vestergade 29 8000 Aarhus C, Aarhus School of Architecture, Exners Plads 7, 8000 Aarhus, more to come.

About Photobook Week Aarhus PWA
In the last 8 years, Photobook Week Aarhus has become an important player in the field, by running an annual event about and around the photobook, publishing projects, conference participations, international collaborations and the creation of a strong global network. We have exhibited publications from all over the world and brought experts together in talks and panel discussions, including online events. We have produced artists’ books, scholarly publications, performances, workshops, and conferences. And we have run an open book market where artists and publishers can exchange their works and their opinions, in an inclusive and unpretentious manner. 

According to our participants and partners, PWA has become a special meeting-point, which is acclaimed for its atmosphere and spirit, and has been called “the Think Tank of the Photobook”. We have not only tried to be a platform for artists and publishers to show and sell their books, but have also asked collectors, researchers, critics, and creators to share their views with our visitors. Curators from all over the world have been invited to select old books and new books, artists’ books and photobooks, magazines and zines, trade editions and self-published projects, to present them in exhibitions that highlight their regional, thematic, and historical contexts. The themes of the last three editions of PWA have tried to connect the book medium with cross-disciplinary research questions borrowed from the fields of architecture, visual culture, history, philosophy, and social studies. After looking at Flatness (2019), and Seriality (2020), the last festival was dedicated to Movement and Transition, embracing contemporary themes such as migration, globalization and post-colonial thinking, artistic movements such as Fluxus, sub-genres such as company books, and a regional focus on Central and Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and Greenland.

Photobook Week Aarhus 2022 is supported by the City of Aarhus (kulturudviklingspuljen), the Nordea Foundation, Canada Council for the arts, Boris Lurie Art Foundation and the Dreyer's Foundation