Photo Vogue Festival has always tried to challenge the danger of single, monolithic stories, and to push a multiplicity of points of view. For its 6th edition, titled REFRAMING HISTORY, we wanted to explore the projects that have reclaimed an alternative, different way of telling a tale. From projects that reframes omitted, forgotten and overlooked historical figures to works that reclaims an idea of beauty that has been diminished, stereotyped or exoticised. Helping in achieving what Chinua Achebe called "a balance of stories" is one of the founding missions of Photo Vogue, Vogue s global photographic platform that this year celebrates its 10th anniversary. Human beings are storytelling animals: the stories we tell are not just a way of representing the world, they become the very world we inhabit. There s a great African proverb that Achebe often quotes, that says "until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." For this edition of the festival we are looking at the lions stories.
This exhibition features 35 photographers selected through the Open Call on Photo Vogue, Picter and Instagram. On Picter alone we received 24.913 images, 2.949 projects by 2.513 photographers from 98 different countries, 6 continents.
The artists have been selected by an international jury consisting of experts from across the world, with different backgrounds and vision so as to try to provide the most inclusive and multifaceted perspective.
The 35 artists are:
Abhishek Rajaram Khedekar
Alessandro Iovino
Bettina Pittaluga
Bryan Thomas
Delali Ayivi and Malaika Nabillah
Diego Moreno
Dimakatso Mathopa
Elena Helfrecht
Elliott Verdier
Fabiola Cedillo
Gabriele Cecconi
Heather Agyepong
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Irene Antonia Diane Reece
Ismail Zaidy
Jair Fernando Coll Rubiano
Jodie Bateman
Juan Brenner
Kai Yokoyama
Laura Pannack
Lebo Thoka
Léonard Pongo
Lisandro Suriel
Magda Kuca
Mous Lamrabat
Plantation (Ayomide Tejuoso)
River Claure
Robert Andy Coombs
Roberto Tondopó
Sara Bennett
Silvana Trevale
Suleika Mueller
Sushavan Nandy
Tamary Kudita
Thembinkosi Hlatshwayo
Tomasz Kawecki
We are thrilled to announce that the two artists who will receive a 5,000€ cash grant each, offered and paid by Studio RM, are Lisandro Suriel and River Claure.
LISANDRO SURIEL (VIDEO)
Lisandro Suriel was born and raised in Saint Martin, an island in the Dutch and French Caribbean. As a child of the diaspora, he found no formal institution ever introduced him to the idea that his history and identity might extend beyond being a descendent of slavery. With Ghost Island he seeks to uncouple the Black and Caribbean narrative from a one-dimensional colonial history. Suriel stages magic-realist recollections of ghost stories and other oral histories from the island. He proposes the imaginative lens as a way to analyze how folkloric figures act as historic agents and animate cultural memory. As a documentary of imagination, His ongoing project Ghost Island posits the Black subconscious as a means of reconfiguring collective memory and reclaiming history.\
RIVER CLAURE (PHOTOGRAPHY)
River Claure (Bolivia, 1997) Born in Cochabamba, Bolivia (1997). He studied Performing Arts, Graphic Design and Contemporary Photography. His work revolves around cultural juxtapositions and investigating identities marked by territory. Winner of the Eduardo Abaroa National Award (BO) and the XVIII Roberto Villagraz International Photography Scholarship (ESP), he recently won the Genesis Imaging Award of the FORMAT 21 festival (UK) and was nominated for the Joop Swart Master Class of World Press Photo (NL), his work has been exhibited at festivals such as GetxoPhoto, Format21, FIFV Festival, Photoville, Lagos Photo, The Rencontres d Arles, among others. In 2020 he published his first photobook "Warawar Wawa" under the Colombian publisher RAYA, and was named one of the photographers "Ones to Watch" by the British Journal of Photography. He currently lives and works in Madrid, Spain.
