Art / Bristol Photo Festival
The power of monochrome shines at Bristol Photo Festival 2024
The second edition of Bristol’s own international photography festival will be opening the week of October 16, with numerous exhibitions running across the city well into the autumn and winter months.
Bristol Photo Festival has chosen The World on a Wave as the theme underpinning its second edition, with selected images “shaped by the movements of the city”.
Highlights include a major collection of work from acclaimed Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi, At the edge of the everyday world – showing at Arnolfini until February 2025, Bandia Ribeira’s Not a Home Without Fire at Bricks, St Anne’s House, and Hashem Shakeri’s Staring into the Abyss, set for a three-month exhibition at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.
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Work by Giulia Vanelli from The Season series, showing at SERCHIA Gallery as part of the Bristol Photo Festival group exhibition Marked By Light – photo: courtesy of the artist
Work by Giulia Vanelli from The Season series – photo: courtesy of the artist
At both Martin Parr Foundation (MPF) and SERCHIA Gallery, the photographs selected as part of the festival showcase the startling power and beauty of the monochromatic image.
MPF will be exhibiting Monument from Australian photographer Trent Parke. Bringing together images created over a 25-year period on the streets of Sydney and Adelaide, the project operates as an imagined time capsule; a ‘monument’ to human kind, should the world come to a sudden end.
Work by Trent Parke from Monument, showing at Martin Parr Foundation as part of Bristol Photo Festival 2024 – photo: © Trent Parke, Magnum Photos
Work by Trent Parke, from Monument – photo: © Trent Parke/Magnum Photos
The first time this work has been seen in Europe, the immersive installation is loosely structured around three themes: the endless struggle, the Big Bang, and space and eternity.
“I wanted something that started off very simple but had that feeling of melancholy, before spiralling out of control, to eventually end up the same way that it started,” explains Parke. “The human race as a blip in the life of the universe spanning the dawn of time.”
Work by Agnieszka Sosnowska – photo: courtesy of the artist
Work by Agnieszka Sosnowska – photo: courtesy of the artist
Over at SERCHIA, four photographers contribute to the curated exhibition, Marked by Light, which also brings to mind the permanent connectivity between time and space that can be struck in the process of capturing an image.
Agnieska Sosnowska’s work reflects a quarter of a century living in Iceland, her adopted home, and the impact of the natural landscape upon her psyche.
Images taken from Giulia Vanelli’s series The Season depict “a delicate rumination on the slowness of time, a meeting point between childhood memories and a still present place where the external world feels remote”.
Work by Kiowa Casey – photo: courtesy of the artist
Work by Kiowa Casey – photo: courtesy of the artist
Kiowa Casey harnesses the power of photography to maintain a relationship with her late mother.
And selected work from Yana Wernicke, initially made for her Companions series, bears witness to the enduring relationship between humans and animals, seen through the lens of two people, Rosina and Julie, and some of the many animals they have rescued.
Work by Yana Wernicke from the Companions series – photo: courtesy of the artist
Work by Yana Wernicke from the Companions series – photo: courtesy of the artist
Louis Stopforth has reflected on the emotional power shared by all these photographers. “In all four,” he explains, “we see the creative workings of those reaching out and interrogating the axiom that photography is related to the past only, and that it is a medium of inertia.
“This is photography that is representing existing, forming and entwining with the present. Through them, we are afforded a chance to experience a past and present that coexists.”
Trent Parke: Monument is at Martin Parr Foundation from October 3-December 20.
Marked by Light: Agnieska Sosnowska, Giulia Vanelli, Kiowa Casey and Yana Wernicke is at SERCHIA Gallery from October 16-December 20.
For more information about these and all the exhibitions running as part of Bristol Photo Festival: The World on a Wave, visit www.bristolphotofestival.org.
Main photo: Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2002. From Monument, © Trent Parke/Magnum Photos
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