WHO WE ARE
Belgrade Photo Month is a permanent team of 5 people, but also great group of contributors, passionate about art and photography.
BPM 2023 COLORAMA
The world had changed dramatically since the invention of photography was officially announced back in 1839. And Belgrade Photo Month has changed, just as well. For the first time in the festival’s history, its 6th edition has a theme – Colorama.
Colorama refers to the giant colour transparencies that were produced by Kodak and exhibited at the Grand Central Terminal in New York during 1950-1990s. One may ask if something unites 19th century black and white pretentiously realistic daguerreotypes of wealthy aristocracy and striking Kodachrome coloramas of idealistically dreamy and way too happy families. The answer might be that it is their false and insincere essence which makes those images so close to each other despite the time distance of more than a century.
While Daguerre’s images had to be made such by the time they were produced, Kodak coloramas’ messages were made too happy deliberately. But is it ever possible that there is too much happiness and colour in life, even if they are kind of semi-faux? What if it brightens up the darkest days being like a lighthouse that reminds us there is something good even in bad times?
The last couple of years have been tough for the world: viruses, pandemics, lockdowns, non-stop wars all around the globe in the name of peace and national borders, regimes dressed in garments of pseudo-democracies. None of it made peoples’ lives neither easier nor happier.
Even though things that we cannot change or influence have always been existing, we still have a privilege to pursue beauty, happiness and joy in almost everything. And these small changes do make great differences even if only one person tries to shape the reality with colours of life.
This year the festival unites international and local photographers to make Belgrade burst in splashes of colour and touches of tints and shadows. Catalan painter Joan Miró once famously said: “I try to apply colour like the words that shape poems, like notes that shape music.” Though we are not attempting to either paint or create music, we are still making the space for contemporary artists to tell their vibrant visual stories by the means of photography.
Tatyana Valova, Curator
MISSION
As we like to say, this festival belongs to us and to you; it is a festival for people from Belgrade and Serbia, but also a festival for photography enthusiasts from every corner of the world who want to enjoy it, in person or online.
Many things have changed since we started the festival in 2016, from the team members to the very vision of the festival, from its visibility in the media to the different kinds of support we have received from both volunteers and institutions.
From one year to the next, we feel an increasing obligation to continue improving the quality of the festival, as well as our outreach, and this is not an easy task. We are aware that with last year’s festival we raised the bar high in terms of the quality of work exhibited, and despite the extremely challenging situation in Serbia concerning financial support for cultural manifestations and culture in general, we will persevere in our endeavours to make the festival even more special. Through our imagination and creativity, we will transform these challenges into concrete objectives to continue promoting photography in Serbia and Serbian photographers to international audiences.
Thank you all on behalf of the entire Belgrade Photo Month team. I would also like to thank all participants and visitors; all partners who offered exhibition or presentation spaces; all our volunteers, sponsors and organisations who have helped us to make this dream possible.
PARTICIPANTS
Who can participate on this event: art galleries, art and cultural institutions, which tend to organize photography exhibitions or movie screenings, groups interested in organizing workshops or any other photography related activities.
Participation requirements: Just the commitment to work during April 2023 in the same direction as Belgrade Photo Month. Nothing more.
What we offers to the participants: The promotion of the event in Serbia but also in international photography webs and magazines. We will make a catalogue with all the details regarding the participants, including a map with all the related events and places around the city and other relevant information as well.
CONCLUSION
We’re not sending a starship to the moon, we just want to put Serbia on a photography map of the world!
