Talent Lab is Athens Photo Festival’s artistic development programme intended for emerging photographers and visual artists. This programme offers 15 photographers with an intensive learning experience that seeks to further develop their creative practice, and voice, under the guidance international photography experts.

The lab is for photographers who are either working on a specific project or are eager to bring new perspectives to their work, providing them with the necessary tools to best approach the different phases of project development.

The lab’s central focus is an intensive 3-day workshop from 26-28 June 2019, combined with an online follow up session in September 2019. The workshop is divided into 3+1 sessions, led by Erik Vroons (Editing and Sequencing), Natasha Christia (Installation and Exhibition) and VOID (Independent publishing house), and a final reviews session with Erik Vroons via Skype.

Editing and Sequencing

Expert: Erik Vroons

This session offers participants an opportunity to receive critical feedback of their work in progress, including editing and sequencing, enabling them to improve their portfolio and consider the next steps. The aim is to figure out at what stage the projects are at the moment and how to proceed from here on.

Installation and Exhibition

Expert: Natasha Christia

The aim of this session is to provide photographers with tools so that they can develop their own language when it comes to exhibiting their work adopting different formats. Participants become engaged with the conceptualization of their projects in diverse contexts (galleries, festivals, institutions, installation formats).

Self Publishing Photobook

Expert: Void, independent publishing house

Are you considering endeavoring in a photobook project? This session’s aim is to help artists find the best way to turn their work into a printed matter. The discussion will span all the creative aspects of a publication: from the sequencing and narrative, to the design process. We will also talk about the practical aspects of printing a book and give a grasp on how the publishing universe works.

PLACES
Limited to 15 Participants
SCHEDULE
26 – 28 June, 2019
10:00 am  – 4:30 pm
VENUE
Benaki Museum
(Pireos 138)

HOW TO PARTICIPATE?

The lab is open to a maximum of 15 participants and places will be allocated based on the quality of submitted projects.

Five (5) places are offered to 5 selected young artists from Greece up to the age of 35, sponsored by the HCP’s “Young Greek Photographers Platform” support measures.

Five (5) places are offered to 5 shortlisted artists in this year’s open call for submissions, sponsored by Athens Photo Festival.

Five (5) places are open to international and Greek photographers at a special fee of 180 €. All artists working with photography are eligible.

Application Deadline: Thursday 21 June.

Apply now

All participants will need to cover their travel and accommodation costs.

Experts

Erik Vroons

Editor at large of GUP magazine, Curator for New Dutch Photography Talent

Erik Vroons (1976, The Netherlands) combines an academic background with practical skills. He holds an MA in Photographic Studies (Leiden University) and Media Studies (University of Amsterdam) and currently works as a freelance critical writer, editor, and mentor.

Main activities: Editor-at-large of the international photography magazine GUP and curator for New Dutch Photography Talent. He has executed several workshops, at Singapore International Photography Festival (2014 + 2016), Tokyo International Photography Festival (2015), Belfast Photo Festival (2015+2017), Warsaw (2017), Jamia Islamia University, Delhi (2016) and he has been a portfolio reviewer at many other international photography festivals. Over the years several acclaimed photographers consulted him concerning their works in progress towards presentation of a book, an exhibition or a website.

http://www.gupmagazine.com

Natasha Christia

Independent curator and writer, Spain

Natasha Christia is a freelance curator, writer and educator based in Barcelona. She is also a collection consultant and a dealer specialized in fine art photography and photobooks. Her research focuses on the exploration and reinvention of dominant narratives through a novel reading of archival collections, the intersection of photography, film and the photobook, and the dialogue between 20th century avant-garde photography and contemporary forms of expression often labelled as post-photography.

Christia was the artistic director of the fourth edition of DocField Documentary Photography Festival 2016, which was launched under the theme “Europe: Lost in Translation”. She has curated various exhibitions, among them “Uncensored Books” (Belgrade Photomonth/April 2017, Minimum Studio/Palermo-June 2017), “AMORE: An Unfinished Trilogy by Valentina Abenavoli” (Void / Athens Photo Festival, June 2017), Dragana Jurisic: “My Own Unknown” (Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris November 2017), “Reversiones” (Centro de la Imagen, Mexico DF, November 2017-March 2018) and Lukas Birk: “Travelogue Sammlung” (Belgrade Photomonth 2018).

Since 2008, she has been teaching in photography schools in Spain and abroad. She regularly contributes essays on photography criticism for international publications and for artists. She was the guest editor of OjodePez magazine 41: “Self Calling” and guest-editor at the Read or die Publishing Fair in Barcelona (November 2015), exploring the topic “The Book: on Endless Possibilities”.

www.natashachristia.com

VOID

Independent publishing house

Founded in October 2016, Void is a non-profit organization engaged in alternative publishing, exhibitions and education. Focused on photography, Void has an alternative approach to it, exploring unorthodox design, communication and printing techniques to promote the medium. Void has collaborated with international photographers and institutions like Athens Photo Festival , National Museum of Contemporary Art of Athens, Hydra, Gomma Books & Grant, Istanbul Photobook Festival, Lucy Art Residency, LensCulture, PHmuseum among others. Most recently published projects are books by Antoine d’Agata, Olivier Pin-Fat, Bérangère Fromont, Leif Sandberg, and ‘Hunger’, a newspaper by various artists as Tereza Zelenkova, JH Engström, and Joan Fontcuberta.