Like its partner projects – Fotograf Gallery and Fotograf Magazine – the Fotograf Festival explores the intersections between photography and contemporary art. Thematically, the fifth edition will focus on “Documentary Strategies” and during October it will introduce a number of group as well as individual exhibitions, staged in cooperation with Prague galleries. The exhibition programme will be complemented by a series of discussions, site-specitific events, screenings and guided tours. The international open forum once again makes up an inseparable part of the festival, offering leading world theorists and curators a platform to develop, deepen or articulate in more detail the importance of this year's festival topic.
Interest in documentary strategies and methods rises regularly with ongoing social crises; indeed, the previous documentary wave – described as the “documentary turn” in art – came along at the beginning of the 21st century. For the very first time in the festival programme, we will try to bring together contemporary art & art theory that have reflected the documentary turn with the rich Czech documentary tradition; likewise we will try to offer new possible interpretations of this important chapter in the history of photography, and to rekindle the debate about the possibilities of employing the documentary genre in contemporary photography and art. In the course of history, the term, “documentary photography” encompassed greatly varied contents, be it an image archive, an instrument of ruling power, or a means of resistance. What is its importance today?