After the success of the 4th edition in 2019, Hangar, the photographic center of Brussels is launching the 5th edition of PhotoBrussels Festival. Since its creation in 2016 by Delphine Dumont, PhotoBrussels Festival has been deployed on the 1000 m2 of the Hangar with a thematic exhibition and offers a photographic tour of the city (35 sites) as well as various events (conferences, workshops, etc.). Hangar thus hosted a first edition on the theme of the landscape (“Landscape”, 2016) and successively highlighted the portrait (“Portrait”, 2017), the city (“City”, 2018) and the still life (“Still Life”, 2019).
PhotoBrussels Festival 05 will remember the year 2020: 420 artists confined in Europe responded to the “Call for European Photographers” launched during the confinement (March-June 2020). A jury of experts selected twenty-seven winning projects to be presented at the Hangar: a photographic mission as a souvenir and an immersive scenography reminiscent of the condition of “confined”.
Through twenty-seven different photographic and / or videographic sensibilities, Hangar unveils the seeds of human resilience. Each artist presents their vision of the “inner world”, shattering the universe of the quarantine. Creativity, humor, empathy, reflection, love, inspiration from nature are all principles that promise rapid recovery and a better “after”.
A word from the director, Delphine Dumont
“As I write this text, our world is in the same state as in March 2020 when we launched our call to carry out a photographic project during confinement: anxiety provoking climate, uncertainty about the future….
As in spring 2020, the news is made up of a continuous stream of negative news. Like everyone else, we experience this extreme tension at the Hangar. Our programming has been shaken up since March. We have just changed the dates of the Festival (January 21-March 27) without any certainty of the health measures underway at the start of 2021. As in March 2020, we are taking a step towards a form of resilience *. The publication of the book “The World Within”, which brings together the projects of
27 winners of our call are simply calling us to get back on track and move forward. Today, when the “semi-lock down” and the deprivation of liberty have become our daily lives, we realize how much artists are our allies in the midst of the ordeal. Their gaze on the world supporting us, is like a mirror through which our tensions, our anxieties, our joys, our hopes are expressed.
Through the book “The world within”, I invite you to take ownership of the whole of these projects, texts and images and to measure the extent to which the artists have demonstrated resilience, their own resilience or that of others. These photographs undoubtedly emanate a little melancholy, but above all a great humanity. Not always on the surface but in a very subtle way. Sometimes hidden. As we could be during this time.
What we used to call a “historic mission” becomes a snapshot / almost a Polaroid of what we are going through today.
Also, Julia, Nick, Laure, Gérôme, Patrick, Marguerite, Ferhat, Kira, Pierre, Alice, Frédéric, Mattia, Simon, Lucile, Bruno, Jean-Marc, Valentina, Gonçalo, Giovanni, Philip, Yann, Pierre, Elea, Alexandra, Alisa, Edgar, Lucas, Gabriele, Sarah… .., as “witness artists of our time”, don’t they ultimately carry our voices to all of us? ”
* Resilience is a “rebound” and the ability of each to build and live satisfactorily despite traumatic circumstances.
Delphine Dumont
The twenty-seven laureates:
Gérome Barry, Lucile Boiron, Marguerite Bornhauser, Ferhat Bouda, Bruno Boudjelal, Sarah Bouillaud, Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni, Gonçalo Fonseca, Julia Fullerton-Batten, Gabriele Galimberti, Nick Hannes, Giovanni Hänninen, Philip Hatcher-Moore, Pierre Jarlan , Kíra Krász, Yann Laubscher, Lucas Leffler, Edgar Martins, Alisa Martynova, Patrick Messina, Alice Pallot, Elea Jeanne Schmitter & Le Massi, Alexandra Serrano, Frédéric Stucin, Mattia Sugamiele, Simon Vansteenwinckel, Laure Vasconi.
PhotoBrussels Festival 05: The World Within
New dates: January 21 – March 27, 2021
Hangar
Photo Art Center
18 Place du Châtelain1050 Brussels
Belgium
