MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY

31 May – 30 June 2016
Ljubljana, Slovenia

This June, the eighth edition of PHOTONIC MOMENTS – MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY festival will take place in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The festival was founded in 2005 as the first international festival of contemporary photography in Southeast Europe and its leading role in the region is kept until today. Photonic Moments gives the best insight into the contemporary photography in Central and Southeast Europe!

The festival opens on Tuesday, 31 May 2016 with the grand exhibition of Sebastião Salgado at Jakopič Gallery and at City Museum of Ljubljana, and will be followed by inaugurations of several exhibitions and events throughout the opening week of the festival (31 May – 4 June 2016) in different venues across Ljubljana.
We would like to especially point out the exhibition of Jean Cocteau and Veno Pilon, entitled Bohemians from Montparnasse which opens on 1 June at Photon Gallery as well as exhibition PhotoMagic, Memory Lab and number of others. You can find more details about the programme below!

The main topic of this year’s festival is to address the turbulent ruptures and changes Europe is facing at this very moment, be it the wave of refugees who move to safer and more favourable parts of the world or reflection of recent history of the old continent with a sufficient temporal distance.

HIGHLIGHTS:

JEAN COCTEAU & VENO PILON: Bohemians from Montparnasse
1 June at 8pm at Photon – Centre for Contemporary Photography, Ljubljana
Alongside the multitude of crucial historical developments, even quite trivial events may turn out to be historically significant with the passage of time. And thus the meeting and trivial wanderings of a dozen art colleagues around the Paris district of Montparnasse on an August afternoon in 1916 may turn into a momentous event–mainly because it was registered and photographed by artist, writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau and because the people standing before him would later become unforgettable figures in history. Some years later, Slovenian artist Veno Pilon made it to the artistic Mecca that was Paris, having adopted the photo camera for both his subsistence and his creative activity. A century later, works by both of them form the basis for the exhibition Bohemians from Montparnasse.

PHOTOMAGIC: Stane Jagodič, Gábor Kerekes, Branko Lenart
2 June at 6pm at Slovene Ethnographic Museum, Ljubljana
The year 1916 also marks the beginning of the DADA movement, with its all-embracing and timeless artistic ideology and its influence on the photographic medium as well. Paying unique homage to this movement, the PhotoMagic exhibition combines works by three artists–Gábor Kerekes, Branko Lenart and Stane Jagodič–whose art was influenced by principal postulates of Dadaism at one time or another.

MATIC ZORMAN: Dignity
3 June at 7pm at UAUU Gallery, Ljubljana
JAKA GASAR: Heroic Journey
3 June at 8pm at ZRC Atrium, Ljubljana
The photographs of Jaka Gasar and this year’s World Press Photo award winner Matic Zorman belong in the field of social engagement commitment that is even powerful enough to provoke people’s awareness into direct action. Their works address topical questions of immigration of refugees to Europe and its causes.

LECTURES AND PANEL DISCUSSIONS
3 and 4 June at 8pm ZRC Atrium, Ljubljana
Within the frames od lectures and panel discussions the festival will host number of acclaimed experts in the field of contemporary photography and photo publishing. Among others the guests of Photonic Moments will be: Julie Martin (director of E.A.T. – Experiments in Art and Technology, New York, USA), Erik Vroons (editor at GUP Magazine, Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Nela Eggenberger (editor at Eikon Magazine, Vienna, Austria), Tuula Alajoki (programme director of Backlight festival, Tampere, Finland), Marina Paulenka (director of the Organ vida photo festival, Zagreb, Croatia).

EVENING PROJECTIONS
3 and 4 June at 10pm at ZRC Atrium, Ljubljana
Within the frames of Evening Projections the works of 46 photographers from around the globe will be screened in order to give and insight into the tendencies in the field of contemporary photography.

MEMORY LAB. PHOTOGRAPHY CHALLENGES HISTORY
7 June at 8pm at Kult3000Gallery, Ljubljana
This is the third time that the Photonic Moments festival is being held in collaboration with the EMOP festival network – European Month of Photography Association. The Memory Lab. Photography Challenges History project is a result of joint curating efforts by experts from all associate members, however, only small selection of artists and their works is presented in Ljubljana.

VIDEO IN PROGRESS
14 June at 8pm at Alkatraz Gallery, Ljubljana
A regular festival feature, Video in Progress always offers a selection of current works from the field of artists’ moving image. This year’s selection is influenced by the movement of refugees and includes works by international artists who, in their own subjective ways, explore themes of war; refugee and migrant experience; and the universal search for a better future.

MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY, KAMNIK
8 June at 7pm – Main square, Small Castle, Cultural Centre, Kamnik
Within the frames of Kamnik branch of the Month of Photography festival organised in collaboration with the Kamnik Camera Club the exhibition of Olja Triaška Stefanović and group exhibitions, entitled Trees of Kamnik and Kamči will be displayed.

Other exhibitions and events in frames of Month of Photography:
– individual exhibitions of Marina Paulenka, Anna Tihanyi, Olja Triaška Stefanović, Almin Zrno, Jože Suhadolnik, Tomaž Črnej, Mike Crawford, Mirjana Rukavina, Arven Šakti Kralj Szomi & Noemi Veberič Levovnik, Emina Djukić, Virginia Vrecl.
– group exhibitions of two schools for photography, Academy of Fine Art and Design (Tradition, (Un)Known) and Higher School of Applied Arts, Department of Photography (ISO0).