ENTANGLEMENT – Next year’s theme is announced!
Image credit: Detail from 'Soleil and Colin' from the series 'Talisman' by Kristina Knipe CPF solo artist 2023
At the closing event on the last day of the festival we were happy to not only present an inspiring and enlightening talk with three time World Press Photo winner, Mads Nissen, who will exhibit at the festival in 2024. We also announced the theme for next year’s festival: ENTANGLEMENT.
Calling all photographers, exhibition venues and collaborators
With the 2024 theme we hope to shed light on how closely we are all connected, not only to each other but also to nature, culture and the big events influencing our lives in so many ways. Furthermore we hope the theme will inspire photographers, artists, exhibition partners and creative collaborators to reflect and engage with some of the urgent issues of our times.
Just think of all the things that connect us. Visible relations like family, friends and communities or less visible like tech and AI that engages with your online footprints in unimaginable ways and connects us in vast datasets that we have no clue about. Whether we are included in neat, transparent networks or sweeped in unruly, messy or subtle bundles that seem impossible to untangle, there’s no way to evade the entanglements of our complex world.
A hope to inspire to new collaborations and perspectives
The theme will first of all be relevant for all the photographers and artist seeking to present a solo exhibition at the 2024 Copenhagen Photo Festival. The theme is also relevant for our exhibition partners around the Copenhagen region, who will be invited to engage with the theme in some way for the next edition of the festival. Last but not least we hope to inspire collaborators and sponsors to approach the theme in new and inspiring ways to create new collaborations and perspectives.
2024 THEME TEXT: ENTANGLEMENT
The overarching theme for the 2024 festival edition is ‘entanglement’. A word or concept which refers to the way we are correlated over space and time to each other. To how we can have a mutual relationship or connection, in which one thing affects or depends on another. To the footprint that we leave, more or less intentionally.
The thought of being interconnected or interdependent can seem basic. In the sense that it is something which happens in our everyday life – whenever I do something it impacts my surroundings or relations, but it can also create reverberations that I did not foresee. With the word ‘entanglement’ we wish to focus even more closely on how we today seem to be not just connected in neat and nice networks or webs that we can observe, adjust and control.
In a global perspective with climate changes, wars, Western consumerism, AI technology or drug trafficking it is pertinent to talk about a concept like ‘entanglement’ to describe how big historical events as well as our own everyday life are closely connected and can mutually impact each other in unpredictable, unruly and even messy ways. In a complex world the connections are no longer easily traced, controlled or predicted.
When a brisk decision is made to invade Ukraine and the bread prices impact families all over the world. When a girl in Sweden refuses to go to school and impacts how we talk about global climate laws. When we realize that our personal travel plans impact ice melting in Greenland.
With our focus on entanglement for the 2024 Copenhagen Photo Festival we want to encourage open call applicants to examine our own impact on the world on a personal level as well as on how big events may circle out like rings in the water and hit us in unexpectedly and make us marvel, cry, laugh or wonder.
We are particularly interested in applications that through camera-based media show us new perspectives in this entangled world of ours. Projects that both enlighten and inspire us to engage with the world, our relations and the entangled reality we live in.
Even though we live in an often frustratingly ever changing complex world, the complexity, the interconnectedness and the entanglement across time and space also possess beauty and hope that small changes can create large movements. That we as individuals actually can create reverberations, transform old structures and make a positive footprint too.
Strong event program across the city
Image credit: Joakim Eskildsen from his series 'Home works' exhibition at Fotografisk Center opening with a talk on 2. june.
Copenhagen Photo Festival presents the final festival program of the year, which, in addition to all the photo exhibitions, offers everything from inspiring talks and investigative panel debates to thought-provoking films and workshops that focus on rewilding. The festival opens with a curated grand opening event on 1 June, while three time World Press Photo winner Mads Nissen rounds off the festival with the last talk of the year on 11 June and unveiling of next year’s theme.
Copenhagen Photo Festival opens on Thursday 1 June with a large grand opening event that marks the beginning of 11 days filled with contemporary photography, powerful films and insightful talks. The festival's grand opening is celebrated with DJ, happy hour and a rewilded photo performance as well as guided tours by the exhibiting artists in the exhibition park's 13 exhibitions on Refshaleøen as a taste of what the festival has to offer.
Explore all exhibitions and events at the festival center
Topical talks and panels examine art, photography and sustainable practices
In addition to presenting its visitors with contemporary photography, Copenhagen Photo Festival also wants to create a space for dialogue and inspiration through an extensive program of talks and panels.
Under this year's main theme of ‘rewilding’, the festival opens the doors to a series of panel debates in collaboration with FUTURES Photography, where sustainable art practices, art in public space and the importance of artificial intelligence for future photography and art are discussed.
The panels include photographers exhibiting at the festival flanked by a number of guest speakers and experts such as Carina Hammer, responsible for sustainability at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Lisa Giomar Hydén Exhibitions Director at Fotografiska Stockholm and Majken Overgaard from Korridor, but also Raphaël Biollay, curator at Images Vevey and Jacob Theilgaard, director of Bæredygtigt Kulturliv.nu.
Reserve your seat at the panels
From Fryd Frydendahl to Torben Eskerod
In addition to the professional program on Refshaleøen, this year you can experience interesting conversations about photography all over the city, including at the photo book market at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND, Theilgaard Academy, Thiemers Magasin and at the Fotografisk Center and Det Kgl. Library and a number of other exhibition venues of the festival. On the program are, among others, Fryd Frydendahl, Joakim Eskildsen, Per Bak Jensen, Ole Christiansen, Lærke Posselt and Torben Eskerod.
‘Rewild’ your photographic skills
During the Copenhagen Photo Festival, there will be a series of workshops that will take you back to the early techniques of photography. Here you can try your hand at cyanotype, wet plate photography, polaroid transfer or sew your own notebook with the elegant Japanese bookbinding technique.
Photography in the Cinemateque
This year, Copenhagen Photo Festival also offers an extensive film program with subsequent talks both on Refshaleøen and in a special photo film program at the Cinematheque that shows e.g. acclaimed films by Sally Mann, Jacob Riis, Nan Goldin,Helmut Newton and the pioneeren and mad amn Eadweard Muybridge.
Phie Ambo in dialogue about ‘rewilding’
At the festival center you can experience Phie Ambo's latest film "Organised Wildness", which focuses sharply on the dilemmas and conflicting interests that arise in a community in Thy in North Jutland, when the community is introduced to the rewilding of a local forest area. The film will be with English subtitles and after the screening Phie Ambo will enter a conversation on how we can rewild Denmark and have more wild nature. The film screening is made possible in collaboration with Imagine5 and Bio Bio.
Book your seat for Organiseret vildskab
Three-time World Press Photo winner puts the finishing touches on this year's festival
One of the world's most recognized photographers, Mads Nissen, who has won the main prize in World Press Photo three times, rounds off the Copenhagen Photo Festival with an artist talk about his latest project SANGRE BLANCA.
SANGRE BLANCA was made in a unique collaboration with the Colombian artist Juan Arreaza, and examines the journey of cocaine from a laboratory in Colombia to a nightclub in Kødbyen in Copenhagen. The project unfolds through photographs, oil paintings and installations and gives a unique insight into the historically high cocaine trade and its human consequences.
Open call 2024 kickoff
With this presentation, Mads Nissen connects to the Copenhagen Photo Festival 2024, where he will be headliner with his exhibition of SANGRE BLANCA. In connection with the talk, the veil will also be lifted for next year's main theme which kicks off the open call for the 2024 edition of Copenhagen Photo Festival.
Read more about the closing event
Explore the full festival programme
Join us for the Grand Opening 1 June!
Image credit: Kristina Knipe, solo artist 2023
We have been looking so much forward to this! Finally we can invite you to the Grand Opening of Copenhagen Photo Festival 2023 and unveil an amazing programme for a lovely afternoon in great company on 1 June – we look forward to celebrating contemporary photography in the Danish capital for the 13th time with you!
The Grand Opening 2023 of Copenhagen Photo Festival is celebrated with happy hour, DJ, a ‘rewilded’ photo performance and guided tours by the exhibiting artists and curators in our venue FRAME and the surrounding exhibition park.
A rewildet festival experience
The 2023 edition has a particular focus on the overarching theme, ‘rewilding’, and Copenhagen as UNESCO’s World Capital of Architecture in 2023. From 1 to 11 June the festival center and the surrounding wilderness will host no less than 13 exhibitions with around 60 artists and numerous performances, talks, workshops and family activities full of creativity and experimentation.
Exhibitions opening at the festival center
Hiding from Baba Yaga // Nanna Heitmann · Photographs of British Algae - AI Impressions // Craig Ames · Talisman // Kristina Knipe · Almost all the flowers in my mothers garden // Hilla Kurki · The Sunshiners; Code Red in Green China // Daniel Hinks · The bird project // Erik Berglin · On the Verge // FUTURES group exhibition · 2022 Paris Photo – Aperture Photo Book Awards · IMPACT // Atla · DMJX · KBH Film&Fotoskole · Oslo Met · VERA skole for kunst og design
The opening event is free and open for all from 4 to 7 pm
We look forward to seeing you!
Best wishes
Copenhagen Photo Festival
Check out all exhibitions and activities at the festival center
FUTURES Talents 2023
Image credit: Mikkel Hørlyck
The festival is proud to be able to finally present this year's five FUTURES Talents: Giulia Mangione, Jonas Yang Tislevoll, Mikkel Hørlyck, Sofie Flinth and Susanne Fagerlund. They will each present a screening at the festival center on Refshaleøen.
As part of the European platform FUTURES Photography, Copenhagen Photo Festival each year gets to select five talents from our region. This year the FUTURES talents appointed by Copenhagen Photo Festival were selected among nearly 100 applicants seeking the open call from Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
Copenhagen Photo Festival selection
Their Scandinavian background and their photo related education is maybe one of the few things the five talents have in common, besides joining the FUTURES platform for 2023.
Based on an open call, the festival’s programme committee has aimed for talents at a state in their career where FUTURES’ international connections, professional feedback and the networking can boost or push the boundaries of the talents’ individual position.
From photojournalism or (very) personal stories to the use of Artificial Intelligence with an environmental focus, they present the crème de la crème of what photography can be in Scandinavia.
FUTURES 2023 Talents at the festival
Each artist will have a screening at the festival to present their project:
- "The Fall" - Giulia Mangione
- "Take care of yourself son, your mom loves you" - Jonas Yang Tislevoll
- "Jørgen, a Mystery" - Mikkel Hørlyck
- "A Million Dollar View" - Sofie Flinth
- "The Doppelgänger Series – Mourning for what is being lost" - Susanne Fagerlund
Read more about the FUTURES Talents here.
The festival headliners 2023
Image credit: Nanna Heitmann
Copenhagen Photo Festival is happy to announce the six solo artists who have been selected as this year's headliners at Copenhagen Photo Festival 2023. This summer, photographs will literally be sprouting all over Copenhagen, when the selected six photographers engage with the theme rewilding and present us with new perspectives on an important, current topic.
The six solo artists exhibiting at Copenhagen Photo Festival 2023 explore this year’s theme rewilding in the widest sense of the concept and the complexities it entails. From the rewilding of nature to climate issues and diversity to the rewilding of other spheres e.g. bodies, society, social structures or art in itself.
From Magnum and AI photography to rewilding street photos and flower portraits
Each artist present their own perspective on rewilding and engages with it in an intriguing way – from classic photography techniques , AI technology, 'rewilded' street photography to portrait photography with a green twist, critical climate narratives and documentary photos, where stories about identity, healing and belonging sprout in new ways.
The six announced solo artist for the 2023 festival are:
Rewilding dilemmas
The concept rewilding refers to a process of letting nature regulate itself without human interference. Instead of ‘caring’ for nature in a way that serves human purposes or profits, rewilding seeks to restore, repair, cure or even heal nature in a sustainable way that serves nature in itself and aids our gasping climate and biodiversity. The concept has flourished in recent years and proposes solutions but also contests existing (man-made) structures and power relations.
We look forward to presenting the works of each artist with a solo exhibition at our festival centre on Refshaleøen or in the public space of Copenhagen.