Interview with Olivier Cablat
A satellite event of the Rencontres d’Arles, cleverly designed as an independent program, Cosmos Book each year offers visitors a glimpse into publishing practices in photography. It is a perfect opportunity to browse artists’ book, print and digital projects by well-known and promising talents. Cosmos is a forum for photo book-related exchanges. This is an exciting moment, filled with discoveries and publishing opportunities. One opens a book, then another, yet another, then goes back to the first. The wealth of publications, the foregrounding of innovation, and the congenial atmosphere of this initiative have earned Cosmos the reputation as a platform without parallel in the photography festival.
Since it was founded in 2009 and until it became part of the official programming of the Rencontres in 2015, Cosmos has functioned as an independent initiative: “Without actually being part of the Rencontres team, we nevertheless act as curators, who work, however, on multiple projects. We must be able to manage as many as ten projects at a time, all centered around this platform for emerging experimental and current practices in photography, projection, and digital projects,” explains the artistic co-director of Cosmos, Olivier Cablat. He and his colleague, Sebastian Hau, highlight the diversity of editorial practices in order to offer the public a survey of new releases and innovations in photography publishing.
This year, Cosmos illustrates this proliferation of activities. As an innovative experiment, the Cosmos PDF Award is opened to all photographers working on all continents. The award is democratic as it is easily accessible thanks to the PDF format. There is no need to mail original prints. There is no financial constraint beyond access to a computer. The goal of the project is to offer reflection on the contribution of digital technologies to publishing while avoiding the usual buzzwords. The PDF format facilitates an encounter between rarely exhibited artists and a jury of well-known figures in the world of photography. Among eighty submission, ten will be shortlisted. This year, Baptiste Giraudon is the award winner for his work Vertical System of an Echo.
Jury of Cosmos PDF Award :
Sonia Berger – Publisher (Dalpine)
Raphaël Dallaporta – Artist
Hannah Darabi – Artist, winner of the COSMOS PDF AWARD 2015
Frederique Destribats – Publisher (D.Books)
Benjamin Diguerher – Publisher (Pousuite éditions)
Julie Heraut – Exhibition production manager (Rencontres Arles)
Hester Keijser – Independant curator
Patrick Le Bescont – Publisher (Filigranes)
Lesley A. Martin – Publisher (Aperture)
Aurélia Marcadier – Artistic director (Photo Saint-Germain)
Grégoire Pujade-Lauraine – Artist & Book designer (MACK)
Annakarin Quinto – Curator (leboudoir2.0)
Stephanie Solinas – Artist
Jerome Sother – Publisher (Gwinzegal)
Eleonora Matteazzi – Publisher (Rorhof)
Cristina de Middel – Artist, publisher (This Book is True)).
Prize List of PDF Award 2016
1 – Baptiste Giroudon (winner !)
2 – Leslie Moquin
3 – Jonathan llense
4 – Rita Puig Serra Costa and Dani Pujalte
5 – Louis Matton
6 – Clément Paradis
7 – Massao Mascaro
8 – Andrei liankevich
9 – Gloria Oyarzabal
10 – ex-equo –
Jean-Marie Donat
Yanina Boldyreva
Vitaly Fomenko
INFORMATION
Cosmos Arles Books
From 4 to 9 July 2016
De 12h à 20h
Mistral
13200 Arles
France
www.cosmosarlesbooks.com
