Programme

“Uncensored Books”, the exhibition curated by Natasha Christia, inaugurates MedPhoto Festival 2017-2018 in Rethymno. The exhibition will be hosted at the Cultural Centre of Rethymno, from 15th until 24th, and brings together a series of photobooks that address in a critical way, through both their content and form, the production, uses / misuses, consumption and circulation of the Image today within dominant mass ideology’s narrative systems. Experimenting with new ways of storytelling and the present uses of the Image as a tool of political and economical control amidst the contemporary media scape, this exhibition places special emphasis on the fundamental role of the viewer in the dissemination of the final meaning.

Greek Photography Association of Heraklio, Crete

20 D. Beaufort, Irakleio

Duration: 11 November – 10 December 2018

Curator: Marinos Tsagkarakis

Lambros Andrianakis, Dimtris Barounis, Antonis Damolis, Panos Charalampidis & Mary Chairetaki, Chris Doulgeris, Stefania Orfanidou, Charalampos Kydonakis, Lina Manousogiannaki, Michalis Poulas

“Crete: Stories from the Edge” is the exhibition that will take place between from 11 November until 10 December at the exhibit hall of the Greek Photography Association of Crete (EFEK) in Heraklio. The exhibition will host Cretan photographers, who live either in Crete or abroad, and will present works that are in accordance with the main Festival’s subject. The exhibition, which is a MedPhoto’s production, will be co-organised by MedPhoto Festival and EFEK, and will be curated by photographer Marinos Tsagkarakis.

“Outsiders” by Dimitris Rapakousis and “Saints” by Panos Kefalos will be exhibited at the Cultural Centre of Rethymno from 2 December until 19 December.

Paul Graham’s “New Europe” was the inspiration for MedPhoto’s current edition [Europe: the faces and the territory]. This significant work was developed during the critical years between 1988 and 1992. Graham’s visual intelligence depicts traces of time on the body of Europe and gives a new meaning to Walter Benjamin’s words: “History breaks down into images, not into stories”. “Critical Archives III: Identities”, the main exhibition of MedPhoto Festival 2017-2018, will take place at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete, from December, 20th until March, 20th. MedPhoto Festival hosts a mosaic of photographic projects from or about Europe that depict the old and the new face of people in Europe and capture European societies in this procedure of transformation. The identities constructed within this continent, deeply influenced by the rapid changes in beliefs and practices on the level of gender, interpersonal, social and political relations, as well as a critical understanding of the territory, with all the hues and meanings this entity carries, are the focal point of this exhibition.

Kentro Neon

Gerakari 24, Rethymno Crete

Saturday, 13 January 2018, 17:30

An open discussion organized by Medphoto Festival with artists participating in the exhibition “Critical Archives III: Identities”, who will talk about their photographic work and how it relates to the European issue. The opening of the exhibition will follow right after the talk, at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Crete.

Participants: Federico Clavarino, Thalia Galanopoulou, Nick Hannes
Moderated by Eleni Pagkalia

● Open discussion: “The Faces and the Territory: Constructing and De-constructing the European Identity”

The European “face”, on a cultural and symbolic level, is based on the core elements of the Roman law, Greek thought, Christianity, and Renaissance. These fundamental paradigms can be detected in today’s hegemonic and collective representations of Europe as a fortress (or as a refuge); as a monument where the past and the present meet to signify a certain territory of power; as a political and financial centre of domination. The works of this exhibition seem to depict and reveal these symbolic structures and imaginary political and social narratives – such constructed identities and myths that maintain Europe’s status quo – and they attempt to deconstruct them. The photographs also detect the state of emergency that has been imposed immobilizing time and eradicating resistance. The exhibition reveals the darker inner self of Europe and calls for a new and more insightful interpretation of what the “European identity” is or what it can potentially be in the future, beyond the EU major founding myths of rationality, utilitarianism and pragmatism. Beyond the major divide that the economy has brought, and toward a new diverse and dynamic society of cultures united by experience and a common imaginary space shared equally by everyone.
Can photography detect, depict and reveal the European founding myths? The imaginary social narratives and symbolic structures that constitute its foundation?

Saturday, 13 January 2018, 17:30
Kentro Neon, Gerakari 24, Rethymno Crete
● The discussion will be held in English.

Crete and Athens (Places TBA)

Duration: March 2018 (dates TBA)

Workshops and lectures by photographers from Greece and abroad will be given in Rethymno and Athens within the scope of photographic education, allowing the public to get deeper involved with photographic practice. #Dysturb collective will organize an open exhibition in public space, on a square of Rethymno. During this month MedPhoto Festival will organize an exhibition in Athens with works that were presented in MedPhoto 2016, at the four exhibitions of Rethymno.

It is really crucial for us to connect photography with the photobook, featuring the photobook as a separate and cohesive work of art and as a primary frame of reference. Thus, the creation of a collection/library of photobooks from all over the world is in progress. Having in mind the photographic/visual education of photographers, students and others who might be interested, as well as the promotion of works of different artists, our desire is to create a nomadic and interactive library. That is, a library that will travel, lend books, present books through internet platforms, that will be constantly enriched, will give reasons for workshops and seminars with photographers whose books will be presented. We would like this collection to be circulated to public and university libraries all over Greece, to associations, groups and book festivals, so that the public will have an immediate contact with publications and works of important photographers. And, of course, we should not forget that a book is by all means a form of historic archive, something which is also of interest to us. We initialize this project in collaboration with the Municipal Library of Rethymno, Crete, one of the most historical libraries in Greece. The notions we are much interested in our exhibitions are also present in the photobooks’ content. The identities and their rapid changes, the growing trend of introspective use of the medium (intimacy) and the territory, as a site of memory, as a land of state dominance, as an exile, as a place to live, as a battlefield, as a location of production of the image itself, as a no-land, all these are integral parts of the same cohesive narration of the festival.

MedPhoto is getting into publication activity. Our objective, among others, is to publish a work of a Greek photographer every year. This way the festival will gradually contribute to the creation of a body of published works from Greek photographers. The first publication will be completed in February 2018.