Bursa Photofest to mark 100 years of Balkan immigration
BURSA - Hürriyet Daily News
75 unseen photos, selected from Thessalonica Balkan Wars Museum’s archive, will be displayed in the exhibit ‘Centennial of Balkan Immigration’ in Bırsa along with many others.
Turkey’s only international photography festival, Bursa Photofest, is the largest photography festival in both the Middle East and Eastern Europe and will this year initiate a new project for the 100th anniversary of Balkan immigration.The festival has been organized this year under the theme of “Traces of Humanity” and will exhibit photographs that narrate the noble human struggle for a better life, despite wars, economic crisis and depletion of global resources.
In an exhibition 75 unseen photos, selected from Thessalonica Balkan Wars Museum’s archive, will be displayed in the northwestern province of Bursa, an area which continues to receive the highest number of immigrants in Turkey.
The exhibition titled “Centennial of Balkan Immigration,” organized with support from the Thessalonica Balkan Wars Museum, will shed light not only on the state of war but also on the people of the time. Photos in the exhibition date back to a six-year period between 1912 and 1918.
With renowned photographers from all around the world and with Turkey’s new talents in photography, the festival aims to merge the international photography scene with Turkish photography.
Synergistic dialogue
However, this meeting is not just among photographers. The festival’s most important goal is the transformation of the spaces Bursa citizens use most by taking photography exhibits out of galleries and exhibition halls and into everyday life through new and innovative exhibition concepts. The historical Hans and Bazaars district of Bursa, which has hundreds of years’ of history and draws several thousands visitors every day, has been transformed into an open gallery to an effort to bring this goal to life.
The festival will also host photography contests, social responsibility projects, training workshops for amateur photographers, and color the walls of Bursa schools and public institutions with photographs.
The chief curator and general artistic director of the event is Merih Akoğul. Other curators include Jason Eskenazi, Güven Aktaş, Cengiz Karlıova, Hüseyin Yılmaz and Beril Gür.
The event is jointly produced by Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, Bursa City Council and Bursa
Photographic Art Society with the generous support of Bursa Commodity Exchange.
