OFFICIAL 2017 PROGRAMME CONTENTS WELCOME 03 • Welcome Welcome to the inaugural FLOW Photography Festival, a new international festival focusing on photography and photographers living and working in the North, the main theme for our first year 04 – 17 • Exhibition info being ‘People and Place’. 18 – 19 • FLOW Open Competition info 20 – 23 • Exhibition into Our vision is to make Northern Scotland an international centre for photography and to advance photography as an art form for everyone. With the accessibility of inexpensive digital technology, 24 – 25 • FLOW Photofest Film Festival info photography has never been so popular and yet that very popularity 26 – 28 • FLOW Photofest Talks reduces its impact. Our aim is to remind people how innovative and exciting photography can be. 29 • Photogravure workshop The festival team is made up of 3 directors; Matt Sillars, Roddy 30 • Portfolio reviews McKenzie and Paul Campbell and the FLOW team of Rachel Fermi, Duncan Overmeer and Lynne Mckenzie. 31 • Small walls venue info 32 – 33 • FLOW Photofest venue info A special thanks also goes out to James Roberts, Julia Kirk at Wild Gorse Studio and Marc Wilson. 34 • Ticketing info FLOW would also like to extend their thanks to the Inverness Common Good Fund and Highlands and Islands Enterprise for their help and assistance, believing in our potential and making it all happen. Finally the FLOW team give a special thanks to John McPherson, one of the original organisers who, along with the other directors, first envisaged a Photography Festival in the North. www.flowphotofest.co.uk 03 RAGNAR AXELSSON FACES OF THE NORTH / LAST DAYS OF THE ARCTIC Ragnar Axelsson has dedicated his career to His studies have appeared in print media recording the lives of the subsistence hunters, publications such as Time magazine, fishermen and farmers of the circumpolar Life, Stern, GEO, Polka, Wanderlust, area on the fringe of the habitable world. Geographical and Newsweek. He was born in Iceland in 1958 and started The Faces of the North series was widely his training as a photographer at the age exhibited, including exhibitions at the of 16 in a traditional photographic atelier. Recontres d’Arles Photo Festival (2001) and At 18 he was already a staff photographer Alfred-Ehrhardt-Foundation, Cologne (2005). at the leading Icelandic newspaper, Behind his oeuvre is a strong conviction that Morgunblaðið, and has ever since continued the traditional culture of the Arctic people will his lifelong documentation project on the not be able to resist the disrupting effects of fate of the people and nature of the North. larger forces of economy and climate change. Since the early 1980s he has travelled to the Arctic, documenting the lives of the Inuit hunters in Northern Canada and Greenland, www.rax.is the farmers and fishermen in the North- Atlantic region and the indigenous people of Northern Scandinavia and Siberia. 2nd to 30th September EDEN COURT, Inverness 04 www.flowphotofest.co.uk SIGGA ELLA FIRST AND FOREMOST I AM Sigga Ella was born in 1980 in Akureyri, Iceland, and graduated from the School of Photography in Reykjavík. The ethical questions of man’s authority to decide who gets to live and who doesn‘t are the issues addressed in the series of photographs she names “First and foremost I am”. The series consists of 21 portraits of people who all have Down’s Syndrome and the reason for that number is because the trisomy of the 21st chromosome causes Down’s Syndrome. She chose to photograph people of all ages and both genders and wanted to show that each of these individuals is a person like anyone else and should not be judged by one extra chromosome. She does not control the people but rather lets them show us who they are. Each photograph shows us a person with his or her own special characteristics. Some are smiling, others giggling and hands and feet are placed freely and that too draws out the fact that by no means are these people all the same, although they share the same syndrome. “First and foremost I am” is an eye opener for the beauty and diversity of mankind and makes us wonder if the future without this diversity is desirable. www.siggaella.com 8th to 30th September IMAG: INVERNESS MUSEUM & ART GALLERY www.flowphotofest.co.uk 07 KIERAN DODDS GINGERS Kieran Dodds (b. 1980) is a photographer Kieran notes that his radiant minority known internationally for his research- is sometimes subject to ridicule and driven photo stories and portraiture. His stereotyping, and that even the term work considers the interplay of environment ‘ginger’ itself is fraught. “In Scotland, it is and culture, tracing global stories through often used as a term of abuse,” he says. “I daily lives. He was trained professionally wanted to use this derogatory word and at the prestigious Herald newspaper group redeem it for its descriptive power. Ginger in Glasgow, picking up national and appears gold, orange or brown—sometimes international awards including a 1st prize all at once. Before Scotland voted on from World Press Photo for his self-assigned independence I was considering how we are story- The Bats of Kasanka. Most recently, he perceived globally, to consider the myths and focussed on his home country at the time of realities. One of these myths is our physical political upheaval in Land of Scots using the appearance and how it relates to identity. I landscape to consider depictions and realities wanted people to see people, not cliches.” of Scottish identity through time. Freelance for nearly a decade, he is commissioned internationally and published widely. @kierandodds www.kierandodds.com 8th to 30th September IMAG: INVERNESS MUSEUM & ART GALLERY 08 www.flowphotofest.co.uk ANDREA GJESTVANG FAROE ISLANDS Andrea Gjestvang is a multi award winning In 2011, in the age group 20-24 years Norwegian photographer based between twice as many women than men moved Oslo and Berlin. For several years now she abroad. Many women see no future in has concentrated on the northern parts of small communities where traditionally male- the world, where she explores the intimate dominated activities such as hunting, fishing, life and persistence of people living in farming and industrial work are greatly remote and inaccessible environments. Her valued. Only 14 countries in the world have a acclaimed series “One Day In History” greater imbalance in gender proportion than gained international recognition for its the Faroe Islands. profound, sensitive and dignified portraits of survivors of the Anders Brevik massacre on 22nd July 2011. FLOW Photofest will be www.andreagjestvang.com premiering her work on the Faroes, exploring the population decline among women. She writes: The exodus of women has become a social problem for the Faroe Islands. Many young Faroese women leave the small island nation in the North Atlantic to study in cities such as Copenhagen, Oslo and London, more than half of them never to return. Sixty one percent of all who study abroad are women and thirty nine percent are men. 2nd to 30th September EDEN COURT, Inverness www.flowphotofest.co.uk 11 IIU SUSIRAJA GOOD BEHAVIOUR Iiu Susiraja is a Finnish photographer based The exhibition will feature work from her in Turku with a background in textile and series ‘Good Behaviour’. Her work is inspired design, fine arts and photography. The by the likes of Francesca Woodman and recipient of multiple awards she has exhibited Lena Dunham and explores states of solitude widely in Finland and internationally. Her to help viewers feel less alone. Playful biography is short and sweet, she says: “I and anarchic, she says, “I photograph me am a Turku-based artist. I like poems, bands, because it is the subject I certainly know the gigs, flea markets, morning, rain and spring. best”. However, using herself as a canvas, Close to my heart are also flowers and Susiraja’s confrontational self-portraits don’t animals. Peony is my favourite flower and I affirm contemporary selfie conventions, like to wear black.” rather, they radically revolutionise them. Boredpanda.com writes “Some of us use selfies as a vain form of self-expression, trying to make ourselves look richer, happier or more beautiful than we really are. Iiu Susiraja, however, turns this concept of the selfie on its head by taking brutally honest, surreal and unflinchingly funny self-portraits using her own body and other objects as props. www.iiususiraja.com 2nd to 30th September EDEN COURT, Inverness 12 www.flowphotofest.co.uk ROBIN GILLANDERS TOM KIDD HIGHLAND JOURNEY: IN THE SPIRIT OF EDWIN MUIR ABERLOUR HOUSE SCHOOL 2nd to 30th September 2nd to 30th September EDEN COURT, Inverness EDEN COURT, Inverness Robin Gillanders is an Edinburgh based photographic artist. Tom Kidd has worked as a newspaper photographer for 25 Gillanders has a strong pedigree of photography practice years and is now a helicopter pilot. He studied photography in Scotland, particularly for his portrait photography, and at the Polytechnic of Central London and Napier, Edinburgh. was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by Edinburgh Napier His work has been acquired for the collections of the Scottish University in 2014. He exhibits internationally and has Arts Council and the V&A. On exhibit at FLOW Photofest are published four books. He works primarily in B&W, with a number of never before seen photographs from Aberlour traditional film formats from 35mm to 10x8 and makes silver House School, where he worked as a photographer- gelatin prints in his own darkroom. in-residence in the late 1970’s. These images reveal a fascinating look at Boarding School life by a photographer In 2009 Gillanders published an exploration of the modern with an acutely discerning eye for the decisive moment, and Highland Scot in Highland Journey: In the Spirit of Edwin clear empathy for the children and adults whose lives he was Muir, photographing people he encountered during a 90 day documenting at such close quarters.