24 November 2010 – 26 April 2011 / Thessaloniki Museum of Photography

A PhotoBiennale retrospective

PhotoBiennale 2010/ 21st International Photography Meeting
Topic: Place
1st part: April-May
2nd part: June-September
3rd part: October-December / May 2011

Since April 2010, Photobiennale has transformed the city of Thessaloniki and 11 other Greek cities in a place of meeting, communication, interlocution and, above all, in a place of images.

PhotoBiennale / 21st International Photography Meeting, organized by the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography having as a central thematic core the place (Topos), is coming to an end with a retrospective of the festival accommodating a photography exhibition, video projections and interactive appliances, which will be presented in the museum space in Warehouse A, Port of Thessaloniki.

The exhibition- installation “Topoi-PhotoBiennale-Sites” contains:
· A specially formed interactive table where the visitors will have the opportunity to choose among all the exhibitions and view a slide show of the exhibits presented.
· Audiovisual material and information concerning the exhibitions and the parallel actions of the festival.
· Interview projections of the artists of PhotoBiennale 2010.
· Press, catalogues and informative material for this year’s organization.
· An interactive appliance , where the visitor by taking active part will have the opportunity to find himself within the “Places” of the PhotoBiennale, in a selection of specific photographic artworks.
· Photographs of 30 artists that took part in the main exhibition programme of the PhotoBiennale 2010, a majority of which constitute resent acquisitions of the Museum’s collection.
PhotoBiennale 2010 is the second part of the thematic trilogy that started in 2008 under the theme of time, (Chronos) and it will conclude in 2012 under the theme of discourse (Logos).
The theme of place (Τopos) was presented in 56 exhibitions (7 of which in slideshow form) of the Main Exhibition Programme of the festival through four different approaches: Place as territory, as an intrinsic part of history, as a result of fabrication and as the artist’s locus of creation.
As an overall, more than 2.330 artworks of 266 artists from 36 countries in 92 exhibitions were presented (Main Exhibition Programme: 56, Parallel Exhibition Programme: 8, Video Projections: 2, Cedefop/Photomuseum award exhibition: 1, Art Galleries Propose: 13, Exhibitions Travel in Greece: 11, Exhibitions Travel Abroad: 1) in Thessaloniki and in eleven Greek cities (Veroia, Heraklion, Kastoria, Corfu, Larissa, Xanthi, Panormo, Pentapoli Serres, Ptolemaida, Rethymno, Chios), in collaboration with 100 public and private bodies.

More than 140.000 people (twice as many than the one of PhotoBiennale 2008) have visited until today the exhibitions of PhotoBiennale, which is still in progress.
This exhibition is realized with the collaboration of Thessaloniki Photography Museum and Thessaloniki International Film Festival.

The integration of the Action “Organization of PhotoBiennale from Thessaloniki Museum of Photography” in the Business Plan “Macedonia- Thrace 2007-2013” in the Region of Central Macedonia was decided by the General Secretary of RCM.
The organization of PhotoBiennale 2010 is funded by NSRF and sponsors.

This exhibition discloses that the Place (Topos) of the PhotoBiennale 2010 was constituted by 2330 works-sites, divided in thematic plateaus, according to the following distinctions: place as 1) territory 2) fabrication 3) the microcosm of the artist 4) an innate element of history.

This is a prima facie conclusion. However aſter one has acquired a panopticon stance of the whole event, and has familiarized himself with the different loci as they appear in the photographic works, with the tailor-made interactive devices, the projections, the artists’ interviews, the informational material and the catalogues, then one comprehends that these sites enfold and blend into one another and the distinctions slowly disappear through constant folds.

The outside and the inside, the public and the private, the geographical divisions, the staged and “real” worlds are animate elements open to multiple readings. Basically, this is about the Place in a state of enfoldment, as someone may realize from the different ways of presentation, curating and composition.

The distinction between one Place and many sites depends on the viewer and on the boundaries that he chooses to reinstate by following the flow of the images –i.e creating in some way the boundaries of his own lands.

The exhibitions of the main and the parallel program with the participation of 266 artists from 36 countries and the collaboration of 100 private and public institutions were showcased in 41 venues – museums, monuments, galleries, archaeological sites and other places – in Thessaloniki ; aſter that 11 more cities were added to the itinerary.

The main exhibition cluster was based on the choices of the submitted proposals, which were evaluated by the committee below:
Vangelis Ioakimidis (Director TMP)
Christoforos Marinos (Independent curator – art historian)
Thouli Misirloglou (Art historian, curator Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art)Stamatis Schizakis (Assistant curator of Photography and New Media – National Museum of Contemporary Art)
Martha Chalikia (Independent curator – art historian)