Workshop with Joel Sternfeld

Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, 03-06.09.2019

MedPhoto Festival co-organizes with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete a workshop under the key theme “Narrative and the Photograph” introduced by Joel Sternfeld. The role of technology, various practices that combine texts with images and conceptual tools for building narratives will be the focal points of this 4-day workshop that will take place in the workroom of Fine Arts of the Museum.

Open discussion: “Aby Warburg”

Venetian Agia Sofia Church, Rethymno Old Town, 05.09.2019

MedPhoto Festival, in co-operation with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Rethymno organizes an open discussion on the life and work of the art historian and theoretician Aby Warburg.
Lecturer: Yannis Chatzinikolaou, Art Historian

International Photography Award | MedPhoto 2019

In its goal to promote and support photographers, MedPhoto Festival, will – for a third time – grant the MedPhoto Award, Greece’s first-ever international photography prize.

After the 2017-2018 Award Contest in which 350 photographers from 30 different countries took part, a new open call for submissions begins this year. The MedPhoto Award will be granted to a photography project (final or in progress) that will be selected by an international jury and the prize will come with a 3.000€ grant. The competition’s subject is open and there is no restriction regarding age, gender, nationality.

International Jury: Oliver Chanarin (UK), Federico Clavarino (IT), Alvaro Deprit (SP), Marion Hislen (FR), Katerina Stathopoulou (GR)

Entries until 10th October 2019

SUBMIT NOW

Open discussion: “Visual archives as tools for processing and reconstructing reality”

06.11.2019
More Info To Be Announced

CRITICAL ARCHIVES IV: Documents

Main Exhibition, Opening: 07.11.2019

Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete (32 Messologhiou str., Rethymno), November 2019 – January 2020

Artists: Andrea & Magda, Bill Balaskas, Tommaso Bonaventura & Alessandro Imbriaco, Joachim Brohm, Lorenzo Castore, Alvaro Deprit, Haris Grigorakis, Johan Grimonprez, Dimitris Harisiadis, Galatia Iatraki, Yvette Kapsala, Maria Karkanaki, Tonia Koinaki, Panos Kokkinias, Dimitris Michalakis, Costas Mitropoulos, Laura Pannack, Max Pinckers, Georgia Ponirakou, Dimitris Sidirokastritis, Alec Soth, Ioannis Stefanidis, Marilena Stafylidou.

Curators: Pavlos Fysakis, Maria Marangou and Dimitris Kechris

Social relations and their transformations over time, their classification and spatialisation, living experience and its links with memory, the notion of post-truth and the role of technology, family and community, time and death, the interconnection between personal and political issues, the boundaries between the private and the public sphere, between the original and the fake are focal points of the exhibition Critical Archives IV: Documents, that tries to approach the ways through which individuals or institutions proceed to archiving.

In the Museum there will also be a presentation of photobooks related to the notions described above, curated by Zoetrope.

Id – Reconstructing family

Exhibition in Iraklio, Opening: 29.11.2019

Greek Photography Association of Crete (Duc de Beaufort 20, Iraklio), 29th November 2019 – 29th December 2019
Curator: Georges Salameh

Artists: Anna Chronaki, Haris Grigorakis, Erofili Gagani, Galatia Iatraki, Eleni Kanakaki, Maria Karkanaki, Tonia Koinaki, Terpsichori Kouzouni, Chryssa Kapnia, Eleana Kazila, Lefteris Maridakis, Andreas Meladakis, Niki Petraki, Anastasia Tzigkounaki, Eleni Tzouganaki, Manolis Vardas

The dark. The unconscious. The primordial, the disorganized, the emotional. The inaccessible. The impulses, the passions, the unknown forces. The motivation, the instinct, the biological need.
This “Ιd” is one of the three components of the model for the structure of the human psychic organ according to Sigmund Freud’s theory. It is the first part, inherent in contrast to the Ego and the Super Ego, which are defined by social factors.
As Freud saw all human behavior motivated by impulses and instincts, which in turn are neurological representations of physical needs, “Id” is a key factor in shaping human personality.
According to Freud, the two basic instincts are Eros and Death. Eros, the motivating energy for preserving life and the seeking of pleasure, and Death, is our desire to escape reality, to reject it.
Family photo archives are representations of a life we had or would like to have. Other neat, preserved in albums, kept as treasures, other discarded, worn and torn. Gestures that indicate a desire to maintain memory, movements that indicate indifference or the need for forgetfulness.
Restoring archives and redefining them, form moves that open the door to publicity for something that has been private for years. They indicate the need to create a new identity, to produce a new memory.
So we go back to the past through the photographic archive looking at the frame that once shaped us, irritating subconscious aspects. Interference inside the archive and its replanting or its faithful preservation, may be linked to the dark, primordial, unconscious Id. The “Id” conflicts with the Super-ego, the impulses conflict with the moral values, creating clusters we are called to deconstruct.

Nomadic Library Photobook Collection in Stereosis School of Photography

Thessaloniki, October-December 2019

Nomadic Library Photobook Collection continues its journey around Greece. Thessaloniki is the next stop. The collection will be hosted at Stereosis School of Photography, where workshops and seminars will take place the next months. Nomadic Library, consisting of more than 100 books, is the first travelling photobook library in Greece. MedPhoto initialized this project in collaboration with the Rethymno Public Central Library in February 2018. The collection was successively hosted to Veria Public Central Library, to the University of the Aegean Library and to the Cultural Association of the Municipality of Ziros. Through fostering such a library MedPhoto also aims to contribute to the establishing of a historical/photographic archive.