Fotofestival Schiedam takes place from June 18th until July 4th and is an annual photo manifestation in three weekends with exhibitions and activities showing current and actual developments in photography.
The program is based on a theme that explores the relationship between photography and the world because this once trusted medium increasingly shapes and colors to the way we perceive our reality. Fotofestival Schiedam wants to highlight exciting and high-quality imagery that does justice to the complexity of contemporary seeing, showing that there is a world of choices and thoughts hidden behind the final result. Like previous years, Fotofestival Schiedam is characterized by the special combination with other (art) disciplines. At a special location in the town’s historic center, various art projects are exhibited, from young talents as well as established names, presented in spatial installations that move beyond the idea of a flat photograph attached to a wall.
„For the 2021 edition of FOTOFESTIVAL SCHIEDAM we will be reflecting on the meaning of conflict while focusing the festival’s theme on its aftermath, the consequences caused by it and the reconstruction of dialogues in post-conflict period. We would like to explore the emergence of new situations, ideas, relationships, struggles and tensions which reframe a broken discourse giving way of new possibilities.
We are aiming to explore not just the external post conflict struggles between characters and characters with nature and society, but also looking into internal conflicts affecting peoples within themselves and their surroundings. The conflicting needs and principles within or among organisations, the impacts emerging from the technologies, structures of power and beliefs, conflicts of the natural world and with other species, ideologies and lifestyles, the misunderstanding within generations, traditions colluding with the modern world or gender conflicts.
FOTOFESTIVAL SCHIEDAM is open to visual representations using different mediums, photography, archive, installation, performance, intervention, digital art, fictional narratives and documentary works. We are looking for works which challenge the way we think and questions established ideas of engagement.“
