Photoszene-Festival
Welcome
The Photoszene-Festival is a biennial photography festival that takes place throughout the city of Cologne. Since its first edition in 1984, as a continuation of the photo shows organized by L. Fritz Gruber for the photokina trade fair, the participatory festival has established itself in the city and today presents numerous exhibitions on photography and related visual media every year, attracting up to 100,000 visitors.
The next Photoszene-Festival will take place from May 16th - June 13th 2025.
SAVE THE DATE
The next Photoszene-Festival will take place from May 16th - June 15th 2025.
We are excited to share program plans, news and information with you!
The next Photoszene Festival is
feeling, caring, empathizing & connecting
Artist Meets Archive #4
Artist Meets Archive #4
In the upcoming round of the archive program, we are working with the artists Andrés Galeano, Elena Efeoglou, Pauline Hafsia M’barek, Marta Bogdanksa and Wing Ka Ho Jimmi and the Museum Ludwig, the Dombauarchiv, the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, the Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur and the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum. These 5 exhibitions will have an important focus in the program.
Feeling & Photography
With a view to the upcoming festival, we are also looking at feelings in photography in all their facets. Feelings are the last specific feature that distinguishes humans from artificial intelligence and separates them from the power of machines. In a post-factual age, however, feelings are also generated, shared, archived and regulated by the media. Photography - and thus the photographic image - plays a decisive role in social media and media communication. Arousing emotions by looking at a photographic image is the basic principle of advertising, but also of political propaganda or the core idea of environmental activist movements. Knowledge is power - but feelings are more powerful.
At the same time, personal feelings, one's own personal view of the world and personal experiences are becoming a prominent theme in artistic photographic works. Feeling and emotion are increasingly becoming the starting point for artistic observation, telling an almost diary-like story of a very personal view of the world. In contrast to the loud and massively powerful images of the media, many photographic series allow us to look into deeply private emotions and artists of a new generation are opening up to an interested public in new ways. The themes of these introspections include neurodiversities, depression, migration biographies, gender identities, affiliations and, in general, statements on the world in increasingly complex mental health conditions as a symptom of an accelerated, turbo-capitalist, modern networked society.
We ask ourselves:
Can artistic works in photography be seen as introspective emotional research and as a reaction to being directly at the mercy of the crises of our time?
How do joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust and contempt manifest themselves as basic emotions in photography?
What are the opportunities, strengths and risks of photography as a source of impulses for affects, feelings and emotions?
What about our empathy with the planet and all the creatures that inhabit it?
We look forward to using this theme and these guiding questions to develop a common position on feelings in photography. In concrete terms, this means that we look forward to inviting interested photographers, artists and curators at an early stage to accompany us in our photographic exploration of the topic of feelings. We are planning an open call in fall 2024, which will be dedicated to the topic of feelings in photography. The submitted works will be used to create an exhibition at the Photoszene Festival in May 2025.
Important:
The open, participatory aspect of the Photoszene Festival will remain in place and we are therefore also interested in other themes. We are sticking to an open segment of the festival, the theme Feelings is NOT a prerequisite for participation.
