10th Lianzhou Foto Festival

Abstract

LIANZHOU, CHINA NOVEMBER 21-DECEMBER 22, 2014 Ten years is a long time in the life of a photography festival. It indicates perseverance on the part of the festival's directors and backers. It also indicates the festival's acceptance in the greater world of photography festivals, such as within the Festival of Light organization. This is the umbrella organization of a dozen or so photography festivals of established international stature, of which some of the oldest are festivals in Arles, Houston, Braga, and Bratislava; many of these have existed for thirty or more years and have presented curated work and, often enough, regular portfolio reviews since their inception. In an era where, it seems, there is a festival in every village in France (where the Rencontres d'Arles, the grandmother of all photography festivals, was founded) and across Europe and the Americas (where every self-respecting city must have a "photography week"), it is important to pay attention to those festivals that have established themselves in other parts of the world. Culture has always been a marketing tool for cities, and countries for that matter, and it has also always been used by governments and organizations to showcase their strengths and put their best faces forward. One can well think of the great Expositions Internationales in Paris and London and the World's Fair in Chicago in the late 1800s, as well as the modern Olympic Games that, especially during the twentieth century, were signal public manifestations of governments' attempts to project their power through technological prowess, culture, or sport. Think Berlin 1936. Think Los Angeles 1984. More recently, think Beijing 2008. Think Sochi 2014. And so on. "What does this have to do with a photography festival?" one might well ask. Well, the projection of power through culture (or sport) that has manifested itself through events such as the Olympics is indeed part of the marketing of the modern state. Whereas Arles or Houston, for example, may celebrate transparency, democracy, and freedom of expression in a capitalist setting--or the powerlessness of art in a capitalist setting--a festival that takes place in another part of the world where information and expression are overtly, if more usually subtly, controlled, may well appear to represent something of the public face of that country's political and cultural expression and aspirations. The more overt means may take the form of direct censorship of artworks, displays of police presence, or the presentation of propaganda videos, while less apparent types of information control may include restricting internet access during the festival. This brings us to the tenth edition of the Lianzhou Foto Festival, previously known as the Lianzhou International Photography Festival (LIPF), which takes place each November in a small city in the northwest of Guangdong Province in the southeast of the People's Republic of China, some four hours up the new road from Guangzhou, the heart of the Chinese economic miracle, known in former times as Canton. I have had the pleasure of participating for four of the past ten years of the LIPF as a reviewer, jury member, and invited guest. Aside from being witness to the phenomenal transformation of China over the past ten years, the LIPF has offered an unprecedented opportunity to meet many photographers from China--some famous like Wang Qingsong, and some all but unknown, such as Peng Yangjun, Liu Zheng, and Jiang Zhi. The LIPF, through its relationships with other festivals and through the connections of festival Artistic Director Duan Yuting and President of the Academic Advisory Committee Bao Kun, has been instrumental in promoting contemporary Chinese photography throughout the world. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] That said, there have been instances when images have been removed during the festival, invited critics' internet connections have been cut off, juries for festival prizewinners have found their votes overturned, and mysterious breakdowns of digital slide projections have occurred during public presentations of socially sensitive subjects touching on censorship or politics. …