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
Extensive photo film programme at Cinemateket
Image credit: Helmut Newton - The Bad And The Beautiful
As part of this year's Copenhagen Photo Festival we are happy to present an extensive film programme at Cinemateket in the center of Copenhagen. The film house is celebrating the art of photography by showing a number of unique films by and about prominent photographers – from Muybridge and Newton to Nan Goldin, Sally Man, Jette Bang and Steen Møller Christensen.
Several screenings are followed by a talk about the film and photographer. We look forward to seeing you at Cinemateket!
Programme at the Cinemateket
From 6 to 17 June, you can find :
6 June - 'What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann' by Steven Cantor
9 June - 'All the Beauty and the Bloodshed' by Laura Poitras
10 June - 'Exposing Muybridge' by Mark Shaffer
10 June - 'Helmuth Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful' by Gero von Boehm
14 June - 'Flash of a Dream' by Robert Michael Fox
14 June - 'Helmuth Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful' by Gero von Boehm
16 June - 'Exposing Muybridge' by Mark Shaffer
17 June - 'Flash of a Dream' by Robert Michael Fox
17 June - 'All the Beauty and the Bloodshed' by Laura Poitras
How to participate?
Ticket price: 85 kr. (55 kr. for members).
Read more about the programme and buy your ticket at Cinemateket
Festival warm up this week
Image credit: Michael Kenna Wanaka is part of Des Oiseaux opening at Landskrona Photo 12 May
Pop-ups, exhibition openings, artist talks – what is happening this week? Until the festival opens we will highlight current events in our weekly newsletter and Instagram account to help you navigate the many events and exhibitions.
Sign up here for the newsletter
Only three weeks to go before we can celebrate the Grand opening of Copenhagen Photo Festival 2023 on 1 June together. We are looking so much forward to it this year and the many great events, performances and talks we will sprinkle on top!
However, you may have noticed that several of our partner venues have already begun the celebration of contemporary photography and camera-based art across our region ahead of us and we can only encourage you to explore all the available exhibitions and events now in our exhibition programme, e.g. Various Photographers at Landskrona Foto, Craig Ames at Landkrona Foto, and Jesper Rasmussen at Galerie MøllerWitt.
Get an overview below or click here to explore the programme
Image Credits: Paolo Pellegrin at Landskrona Foto / Craig Ames at Landskrona Foto / Jesper Rasmussen at Galerie MøllerWitt
Festival warm up at our partner venues
Image credit: Roger Ballen is part of Des Oiseaux opening at Landskrona Photo 12 May
Pop-ups, exhibition openings, artist talks – what is happening this week? Until the festival opens we will highlight current events in our weekly newsletter and Instagram account to help you navigate the many events and exhibitions.
Sign up here for the newsletter
Only four weeks to go before we can celebrate the Grand opening of Copenhagen Photo Festival 2023 on 1 June together. We are looking so much forward to it this year and the many great events, performances and talks we will sprinkle on top!
However, you may have noticed that several of our partner venues have already begun the celebration of contemporary photography and camera-based art across our region ahead of us and we can only encourage you to explore all the available exhibitions and events now in our exhibition programme, e.g. Refik Anadol at Arken, Marie Hald at Det nationalhistoriske museum, Hyung S. Kim at M/S Maritime Museum, Richard Prince at Louisiana and much more.
Get an overview below or click here to explore the programme
Image Credits: Maja Daniels at Galleri Format / Janne Klerk at Johannes Larsen Museum / Richard Prince at Louisiana Museumof Modern art
Explore the exhibition programme 2023!
Image credit: Joakim Eskildsen / Fotografisk Center
Copenhagen Photo Festival can today announce the final exhibition program with the overarching theme of ‘rewilding’. An ambitious theme that is not only brought into play in the festival center on Refshaleøen, but also unfolds across the festival partner venues, which include major institutions such as Arken, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the Royal Library to the Maritime Museum, The Museum of National History and others.
When the Copenhagen Photo Festival starts in June, the exhibitions are not limited to Beddingen on Refshaleøen. With a wide range of exhibition partners, the Nordic region's largest photo festival also branches out to numerous of the capital's recognized art venues throughout the region with exhibitions in cities from Helsingør to Ishøj as well as Kerteminde on Fyn and Falsterbo in Sweden.
Copenhagen Photo Festival rewilds Copenhagen
During the festival, the festival theme of ‘rewilding’ is unfolded across our festival exhibition partners. At Nordatlantens Brygge, you can experience two exhibitions with photography and film that embrace the Greenlandic and Icelandic nature. The two exhibitions examine modern man's relationship with nature and remind us of the climate changes we are experiencing.
Not too far from there, at Harbo Bar in Nørrebro, Lene Harbo has curated an exhibition based on the photo festival's main theme of rewilding, based on the artist Yana Wernicke's exhibition Companions. In the photographs, the artist examines the human relationship with animals and shares rare and special moments of empathy and care with animals.
During the festival period, several of the festival's solo artists also rewild the urban space in Copenhagen. At Højbro Plads, the Finnish photographer Hilla Kurki exhibits her flower portraits, while English Craig Ames's AI-created algae images can be experienced at Thorvaldsens Plads throughout June. In Vesterbro, you can go exploring for wild, exotic birds when the Swedish artist Erik Berglin rewilds the walls of the district with his project The Bird Project.
This year's photo festival blooms from Helsingør and Landskrona to Ishøj and Kerteminde
The festival also invites guests from outside the capital to explore photography in collaboration with a number of local festival partners. In May, Landskrona Foto & Museum opens the group exhibition Des Oiseaux, which shows the fascination and fascination with birds of 13 international photographers, including the photographer Roger Ballen. In addition, the festival is also collaborating with Landskrona Foto on a special screening of one of this year's main names from the festival center, namely Craig Ames, who can therefore also be experienced outdoors in Sweden over the summer.
In Johannes Larsen Museum in Kerteminde you can experience the special exhibition Reflections by Janne Klerk. The photographs in the exhibition were taken in the water surface of the same small lake and raise a wide range of questions; about the refraction of light in water, about the ecosystem, the universe, the sun, the atmosphere and about reflections between people.
At the Maritime Museum in Helsingør, 26 monumental portraits of Haenyeo women, taken by Hyung S. Kim, are presented. Haenyeo women are deep-sea divers who live in South Korea and who for generations have lived by fishing in a very special way, and therefore live in close connection with the rhythm of the sea.
South of Copenhagen, at Arken in Ishøj, Refik Anadol's exhibition Winds of Denmark can be explored. Here he presents three digital installation works, all of which focus sharply on the mass media's visual representation of nature, and which thereby influence our perception of what nature is and how it looks.
Photo books get special attention
The photo book has a special place in most photographers' hearts. This year, Copenhagen Photo Festival, together with selected partners, has therefore chosen to give special space to the photo book as a format and has teamed up with Kunstforeningen GL STRAND to present a special festival photo book market with around 20 publishers and actors as well as a day-long talk and screening program on the 4 June. Likewise, every day during the festival period, Thiemers Magasin invites you inside for Sign & Talk & Drink, where current photographers talk about their work. In addition, Paris Photo and the Aperture Foundation's celebration of the past year's prize-winning photo books will guest the festival center on Refshaleøen this year.
NB The full program of activities for the festival is continuously updated on the website and is expected to be completely ready in the beginning of May.
The festival's photo book programme can be found here
List of exhibition partners
Atla · Banja Rathnov Kunsthandel og Galleri · Barbara Nolsøe · Bien Contemporary · Danish Architecture Center · Dark Gallery · Det Grønlandske Hus · Det nationale fotomuseum · Det Nationalhistoriske Museum · DMJX · FABRIKKEN for Kunst og Design · Falsterbo Fotomuseum · Fotografisk Center · Galleri Format · Galleri Møller Witt · Galleri Rocks · Kunstforeningen GL STRAND · Harbo Bar · Johannes Larsen Museet · KBH Film & Fotoskole · Kulturhuset Støberiet // Blågårdens bibliotek · Landskrona Foto · Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst · Martin Asbæk Gallery · Arden Asbæk Gallery · Nikolaj Kunsthal · Nordatlantens Brygge · Oblong · Oslo Met · Paul Pape x Inter.pblc · Prospekt Space · PRUST · Ryesgade – Kunst 86 · Simian · Stig Stasig Archive · M/S Museet for Søfart · Thiemers Magasin · Tingbjerg Kulturhus · Vandrehallen i Hillerød · VERA skole for kunst · Wei Weng x Copenwater x Big Bio
List of photo book publishers and people at the photo book market at Kunstforeningen GL STRAND 4 June
At Last Books · Blankt Papir Press · BOOK LAB · Books & Music · Breadfield Press · Disko Bay · Famn Publishing · Forlaget Aftryk · FORLAGET tidløs · Fragment · Jacob Aue Sobol · KATALOG – Journal of Photography & Video · Martin Asbæk Gallery · NW Gallery · Roulette Russe · Space Poetry · Strandberg Publishing · Tira Books
Help us get better!
Photo: Skabertrang by Aftenskolen Fountain House at Den Sociale Blomsterhave, photo by Hans Vedsted.
We are very curious to hear how your experience of this year’s Copenhagen Photo Festival was? What did you like? What would you like more of and how can the festival best meet your expectations in the future?
As a festival that wants to evolve creatively and organically, meet our visitors in the best possible way and present new innovative exhibitions, emerging and established artists as well as present you with great events in a nice setting, we are always open to suggestions, constructive ideas and new partnerships.
It only takes 5 minutes!
We therefore hope you will use 5 minutes of your time to fill out a short survey about your festival experience. You can also fill it out, if you did not attend. Either way you may have ideas, comments or suggestions for new paths or partnerships for the festival that could be interesting for us.
If you participate you get the chance to win two tickets for next year's festival. We will find the winner 15 August.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Click here for the English survey
Klik her for at få spørgsmålene på dansk
Photo Festival Blues?
Photo: Lee Miller, solarisation self-portrait
We know the feeling: When all the enriching experiences of the 11 days of festival fun stop and the festival closes down, an urgent feeling of emptiness can set in. However, this year we have made plans to ease your festival blues. We have kept an eye out for lens-based exhibitions opening after the festival. This week three exhibitions open in Copenhagen at Basement in Vesterbro, The Royal Library and at GL Strand.
Emerging artists from KBH Film- og Fotoskole
At the independent exhibition space Basement on Vesterbro you can experience the works of this year's young, emerging artists graduating from KBH Film & Footskole from 16 june to 19 June – so do not hesitate to stop by. It is always enriching to get a peak into the projects of future art photographers. The exhibiting artists are: Ellen Hartmann Andersen, Yasmin Jalilian, Malek Bigum Ben Habhab, Siri Thorup, Pedersen, Oline Nordengaard, Elisabeth Vicoria Friis, Jón Helgi Pálmason, Kasper Søholt, Ditte Blom Nielsen, Anna Murmann Olesen, Emil Pril, Rosa Tiedje Løkken, Julie Marie Rustad, Sara-Sofie Mahony, Sigrid Ellesøe Nielsen, Niels Lensvold, Maria Buhl Christensen, Martin Belusa, Thea Tønnesvang, Emma Fager, Dicte Hostrup Sønnichsen, Josephine Motet Jessen, Sarah Arge.
Dazzling photographs by Lee Miller
The Royal Library also opens a must-see exhibition on 16 June about the photographer, model, business woman, war correspondent and gourmet chef, Elizabeth “Lee” Miller. She lived an extraordinary life herself and on top of that she was also a dazzling photographer. She both documented and played with the photographic medium: The war photographs documenting the horrors of World War II as well as he playful surreel compositions that circled around the fluctuating role of women.
Curator talk and world class contemporary art photography at GL Strand
This week another must-see photography exhibition opens at GL Strand. South African visual activist Zanele Muholi (b.1972) came to prominence in the early 2000s with photographs that told the stories of black lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex lives in South Africa. Today, Zanele Muholi is one of the most significant artists on the international scene. The exhibition at GL STRAND is the first major presentation of Muholi’s work to date in Denmark and includes more than 100 works documenting LGBTQI + in South Africa and presenting the full breadth of Muholi’s career to date. The Exhibition is organized by Tate Modern in collaboration with Kunstforeningen GL Strand, Copenhagen and Bildmuseet at Umeå University.
On 17 June you can meet Yasufumi Nakamori, Senior Curator of International Art (Photography) at Tate Modern in conversation with GL STRAND’s chief curator Anne Kielgast about his collaboration with Zanele Muholi and the making of the exhibition, which is the artist’s first major survey exhibition. The exhibition is curated by Tate Modern in collaboration with GL STRAND. Following the talk there will be a celebration of the opening of the exhibition.
NB! As a special treat, everyone with a Copenhagen Photo Festival 2022 ticket get a 50% discount on the entrance of this exhibition from 18 to 23 June.
Virtual gaming worlds at Øksnehallen
25 June you can experience another type of exhibition, when Øksnehallen opens the exhibition, New Worlds Emerge. The exhibition is part of a collaboration with Fotografisk Center, which shows Char Davies' virtual worlds all summer with Osmose. The exhibition explores the field of video games and how they emerge out of the minds of the creators. The exhibition is not strictly photographic but explores a border country where photography, video and fictitious worlds connects.
A Big Heartfelt Thank You
Video: Sonia Tomegros Regalado / @noia_de_mon
We want to thank everyone who made Copenhagen Photo Festival 2022 so very special. We are so happy for every single visit to the festival venue and at all the festival partner venues across Copenhagen and Scania – we are grateful you were part of this year's festival!
And of course we also want to thank everyone who made this year’s Festival Center so very special and worth the visit: Our three international solo artists, Hien Hoang, Alexandra Rose Howland and Krista Svalbonas, Tofu Collective’s exhibition at the Space Frame with Chinese artists Luo Yang and Lin Zhipeng, DMJX’s presentation of three photo journalistic talents Jesper Houborg, Louise Herrche and Mads Frost, Odesa Photo Days’ two exhibitions Granny by Olena Morozova, the group exhibition The Thin Line and the Norwegian curator Charlotte Wiig’s group exhibition of a host of female photographers called A Female Gaze and not least the five selected FUTURES Nordic Talents, Iben Gad, Tine Bek, Oscar Scott Carl, Inuuteq Storch and Luna Scales.
Thank you to our generous supporters and helping hands
We are also grateful for all the generous supporters financing the exhibitions: Københavns Kommune, Det Obelske Familie Fond, Creative Europe Programme, Nordic Counsel of Ministers and Værksted for fotografi as well as all the helpful and supportive volunteers and staff that make this festival physically appear at all.
Last but not least we want to thank everyone arranging events and exhibitions around Copenhagen and Scania from the many festival partner venues, the gallery walks and artist talks to DJ sets, sound and image equipment people and all the people engaging with the amazing world of contemporary photography – we genuinely appreciate your flexibility, engagement, good work and happy spirits – we love to make this festival with you!
Thank You! Click here to see all partners and supporters!
Meet Krista Svalbonas – solo artist 2022 under the Framing Vision category
"I think there's an importance to this work right now, especially since history is repeating. We are seeing the war in Ukraine, which kinds of mirrors this story as well."
The Baltic-American artist Krista Svalbonas is the woman behind the exhibition "Displacement" which won this year's open-call in the category Framing Vision and which is the amazing, thought provoking and scarily relevant result of an intensive research process into the history of her family's Baltic roots. Her parents fled the Russian regime after World War II and Svalbonas project excavates this history.
We were happy to have the chance to meet and interview Krista when she was visiting the festival for the install and opening last weekend.
Svalbonas' laser-cut photographs can be experienced at the festival until this Sunday, so don't hesitate to stop by!
Video credit: Sonia Tomegros Regalado
Meet Alexandra Rose Howland – solo artist 2022 under the Framing Society category
"With my work I'm trying to relook at things that we've already seen before, and to rephotograph them in a way that challenges our perspective and challenges the narrative that we've already formed in our minds about these locations."
Alexandra Rose Howland (US/UK) has spent the last decade living in the Middle East. Throughout this time, Howland became aware that what a foreigner views and photographs does not always embody the lived reality of locals, and Howland began asking to download first-person accounts; from selfies to family photos, to Snapchats. The resulting Leave and Let Us Go is an intimate and multi-dimensional portrait of Irak and Iraqis that returns the narrative power of an often-misunderstood country to its own citizens.
We were happy to have the chance to meet and interview Alexandra when she was visiting the festival for the install and opening. You can experience Alexandra's work at the festival until tomorrow evening, so don't hesitate to stop by the Festival Center this weekend!
Video credit: Sonia Tomegros Regalado