Frank Horvat, David Lynch, Weegee, Salvador Dalí (local celebrity), the programming of the seventh edition of the Catalan festival flirts with name dropping… The village of Cadaqués, bathed in the Indian summer of October, welcomes no less than thirty-five international artists showing in twenty-five exhibitions, as well as three underwater exhibitions, immersed in the bay, close to the beaches.
Apart from the big names (which we will return to in future publications) the rest of the proposals still keeps their promises.
The level of quality of the open call for example, hosted this year in the beautiful Iturria gallery, and particularly the first prize in the person of Chloé Milos Azzopardi. The young photographer (29 years old) offers us very beautiful black and white pictures which mixe fiction and documentary reality; manufactured objects usually supposed to make our lives easier are here made of twigs or other natural elements, representing a primitive science fiction, linked to living things and not devoid of humor. Strange, playful and strangely playful photographs.
For his series, or rather his photographic episodes, Richard Pak tells us – and the word is chosen – the story of Nauru, an island in Oceania which has experienced the greatest economic development in its history with the exploitation of underground phosphorus and a dizzying decline, economically and ecologically. The images, portraits and allegorical and damaged landscapes, seem fictional to us but nevertheless provide a metaphor for a tangible reality of crazy human greed. Photography & Science Prize 2023 Residency 1+2.
The church of Santa Maria welcomes Toni Privat (Barcelona). Coming from the agricultural world, he develops subjects philosophically linked to beauty or the passage of time. “Nature shows us the way” he likes to say. He shows us human working the earth, the gestures, the intimacy of the relationship between human and nature, and just like his farmer father, the photographer tells us to sow, wait and harvest, again and again.
Let us also cite Maya Mercer’s visions of an anxious America; Shawn Dogimont, instigator of Hobo magazine; also, Deidi Schaewen and her majestic sacred trees of India, elegantly installed at Corral de Gala.
The festival maintains its duty of transmission with its cyanotype and pinhole photography workshops, as well as two others by Lomography, installed at the Cristina hotel; film screenings at the Art i Joia theater, Man Ray by Deïdi Von Schewen, The Darkroom rumor, screening by Maya Mercer; portfolio readings, masterclasses, and the possibility during the opening weekend to converse with the photographers and authors present, without forgetting the festive evenings which are also part of the reputation of the event.
Jean-Jacques Ader
7th InCadaqués Festival
from October 5 to 15, 2023, in the galleries, churches, theaters etc. of the village.
https://fr.incadaques.com/
