2022
Solo artists
The solo artists at Copenhagen Photo Festival were selected as the annual headliners of the three focal points: Framing Identity, Framing Society and Framing Vision. The focal points are our way of opening up windows to other worlds and serve the purpose of showcasing photography across genres, by focusing on the individual, society and art.
Out of the many amazing projects which applied in 2022, 14 were shortlisted, and finally three artists where chosen as the epitome of each category. Read more about each of the the 2022 solo artists’ projects and see their individual posters below.
Framing Society
Framing Society
Alexandra Rose Howland
Alexandra Rose Howland (1990, US/UK) has spent the last decade living in the Middle East and creating work that challenges traditional coverage of the region and its geopolitics. Her background as an abstract painter leads to a multidimensional practice using imagery, found objects, collage, sound, and video.
In 2017, Howland moved to Iraq to continue her long-term work of trying to understand and translate a nation fractured by decades of instability and war. She created an 88km panoramic image of Mosul Road, the main thoroughfare connecting Erbil and Mosul by sitting on a truck and taking one image every three seconds. She manually stitched each image together to create a visual of the people, landscape, and daily life along the road. The viewers see everything from the extremes of a conflict zone to the regularity of the everyday, challenging their understanding of this overly documented country.
Throughout this time, Howland became acutely aware that what a foreigner views and photographs does not always embody the lived reality of locals. On her first day on the frontline, a soldier sat next to her and flipped through his phone, sharing pictures: His kills. His wife. His girlfriend. His children. His university graduation day. His wedding night. This interaction repeated with myriad of Iraqis who wanted their lives witnessed, not just represented.
Howland began asking to download these first-person accounts; over the next three years, she built an archive of roughly 350,000 images and videos from over 50 individuals, from selfies to family photos, to Snapchats. The resulting Leave and Let Us Go is an intimate and multi-dimensional portrait that returns the narrative power of and often-misunderstood country to its own citizens. The project is comprised of sections from the panoramic image of Mosul Road, phone images, scanned family photo albums, and Howland’s own documentation throughout her time living and working in Iraq. Leave and Let Us Go is published with GOST Books.
Rose Howland’s work was a central part of Copenhagen Photo Festival and was exhibited outdoors in front of BIBLIOTEKET as well as at the festival center on Refshaleøen on June 2nd-12th.
The festival centre and CPF has generously been supported by Københavns Kommune, Det Obelske Familiefond og Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond.
Framing Vision
Framing Vision
Krista Svalbonas
The American-Latvian artist and this year’s solo artist in the Framing Vision category, Krista Svalbonas, is fascinated by the effect of architectural form and structure on the psychology of the human condition and her cultural background as an ethnically Latvian/Lithuanian artist informs this interest. Krista ́s parents spent many years after the end of World War II in displaced-person camps in Germany before they were allowed to emigrate to the United States.
Svalbonas’s exhibition “Displacement” investigates her family’s childhood memories of temporary housing structures, that were appropriated from other (often military) uses to house tens of thousands of postwar refugees. Svalbonas’s connection to this history has made her acutely aware of the impact of politics on architecture, and in turn on a people’s daily lived experience. Svalbonas ́s work explores architecture’s relationship to cultural identity, social hierarchy, and psychological space.
The festival centre and CPF has generously been supported by Københavns Kommune, Det Obelske Familiefond og Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond and the American Embassy.
Framing Identity
Framing Identity
Hien Hoang
In the exhibition Asia Bistro – Made in Rice exhibited at the venue FRAME in the Festival Centre, Hien Hoang’s explores stereotypes, clichés and discrimination against Asians in the West.
The winner of this year’s open call in the category Framing Identity, Hien Hoang (born 1990), is a multimedia artist from Vietnam, now living in Hamburg, Germany. She is interested in the concepts of symbol formation, perception and identities. Her work is a combination of photography, performance, sound and installation, and she often combines her works with the existing space and landscape to add multiple layers and change the context.
Hien Hoang’s work has been exhibited at Planten un Blomen Hamburg (DE), Art Houses – old Parliament Singapore (SNG), Kunsthaus Hamburg (DE), Melkweg Amsterdam (NL), Begehungen Chemnitz (DE), and Museum Belvédère (NL), among others.
The festival centre and CPF has generously been supported by Københavns Kommune, Det Obelske Familiefond og Aage og Johanne Louis-Hansens Fond.
