21 - 24 gennaio 2009, Helsinki, Finland
Opening the 11th edition of the Helsinki Photography Festival in Helsinki, Finland. The four-day opening of the festival includes two main exhibitions, a two-day symposium, as well as other exhibitions and happenings at various venues in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Helsinki Photography Festival 2009 is organized by the Union of Artist Photographers in Finland/Photographic Gallery Hippolyte in collaboration with Helsinki City Art Museum/Meilahti Art Museum and The Finnish Museum of Photography. History and Background_ Helsinki Photography Festival has its roots in the early 1980s in the Valokuvataide-Arkitaide (Photographic Art - Everyday Art) events organized in Helsinki. The engaged and spirited members of the Photographic Society in Finland gathered around the arrangements around every three to four years. The happenings were organized, in all, nine times and are the oldest photography festival in Finland. In the early 1980s, the festivals aimed at reaching out to a broader audience, in times when photography, as an art form, still was marginally positioned. In the 1990s, the festivals were already clearly directed towards a public that was interested in questions concerning photo-based art, and the festivals focused on, for instance, Photography and Power (1993) and German Themes (1996). Since 2000, the event has been known as Helsinki Photography Festival.That year it was named Some Parts of the World, andit was then the most comprehensive and international exhibition and event of contemporary photo-based art to have been organized in Finland. The latest edition of the festival, to be continued (2005), presented a remarkable array of contemporary photography and lens-based work from Finland and the UK, and was curated by Mika Elo and Brett Rogers. Helsinki Photography Festival is organized by the Union of Artist Photographers in Finland - a nonprofit artist-run association with 313 member artists. The Union promotes and supports photo-based art, and the professional, economic and social interests of its members. The Union runs Photographic Gallery Hippolyte in Helsinki, founded in 1978. The Union also organizes festivals and other happenings, including Helsinki Photography Festival, the Triennial of Finnish Photography, as well as the annual Art Fair Suomi. […] Info: tel +358 9 6123344 fax +358 9 6123343, e-mail: mitro.kaurinkoski@hippolyte.fi, www.hippolyte.fi - www.hpf.fi