23 – 25 March 2023
FOTOGRAFISKA DAYS
Cultural Fabric
FOTOGRAFISKA DAYS, a weekend-long program event that took place 23. – 25.03.2023 at Berlin’s Atelier Gardens (formerly BUFA), featured a group exhibition, panel discussions, portfolio reviews, film screenings, and a party.
EXHIBITION
The exhibition Cultural Fabric — Rereading the Relationship Between Fashion and Art Practices brought together specific works by nine international artists: Cibelle Cavalli Bastos, Anna Franceschini, Jojo Gronostay, Carlota Guerrero, Irene Ha, Šejla Kamerić, Mous Lamrabat, Zohra Opoku and Julie Poly. Collectively rejecting the outdated notion that fashion is somehow art’s other, the works presented in this exhibition reflect on the richly interwoven threads of experience, methodology and symbolism that are shared and exchanged between these two systems.
Bringing together a dynamic constellation of image and material perspectives, from the personal to the political, the societal to the subversive, Cultural Fabric traces both the commonalities between fashion and art, while also acknowledging the points at which they diverge, ultimately asking what role different digital and popular cultures play in the production, dissemination and consumption of images today.
CONFERENCE
The educational program of Fotografiska Days spanned across three days of panels, illuminating what it means for the fashion industry to sell products via visual means while undoubtedly commodifying diverse human experiences, often without proper context or care. Intended to redefine such cultural standards, tastes and trends, Fotografiska Days foregrounded the innovative and subversive power that can be harnessed when using the visual languages of art and fashion to reread image and brand-making strategies. Embracing the commercial aspect that both fashion and art depend on to thrive, the program examined contemporary creative economies through conversations around appropriation, commodification and aesthetics and–perhaps most importantly–the radical possibilities for disrupting these economies in pursuit of maintaining both social integrity and artistic independence.
The invited roster of guests and speakers for Fotografiska Days featured a diverse array of figures from the broad field of visual production, including photographers, artists, curators, fashion designers, theorists, critics and magazine editors. Together, they created space for discussions around the complicit roles that images play in the worlds of both fashion and art, and work towards cultivating new critical perspectives regarding the production, dissemination and consumption of them today.
PANEL 01
Artist and Fashion Brand Partnerships: Co-Operation or Co-Dependency?
Moderator:
Victoria Camblin (032c Editor-at-Large/ Co-Founder of Magazine.Capital)
Speakers:
Viviane Sassen (Visual Artist)
Moreno Schweikle (Artist)
Gea Politi (Publisher & Chief Editor of Flash Art)
Mathieu Meyer (Founder of Studio Mathieu Meyer)
PANEL 02
Blurred Lines — Where Digital Fashion Meets Art
Moderator:
Lea Vene (Independent Curator, Cultural Anthropologist & Lecturer)
Speakers:
Giancarlo Pazzanese (Senior Lecturer at Amsterdam Fashion Academy)
Beata Wilczek (Fashion & Technology Researcher and Strategist/Founder of Unfolding Strategies)
Scarlett Yang (Designer and Artist)
Yvonne Foerster (Art, Fashion & Science Philosopher and Professor)
PANEL 03
Location of Criticality — Challenging Dominant Fashion and Artistic Practices
Moderator:
Caroline Stevenson (Programme Director of Fashion and Cultural Studies at the London College of Fashion)
Speakers:
Femke de Vries (Artist, Researcher, Teacher)
Tuukka Laurila (Founder and Director of The Community Art Center)
Jeppe Ugelvig (Curator, Historian, Cultural Critic)
PANEL 04
A Closer Look: On the Exhibiting Artists and their Work
Moderator:
Olamiju Fajemisin (Independent Writer, Editor and Curator)
Speakers:
Šejla Kamerić (Exhibiting Artist)
Cibelle Cavalli Bastos (Exhibiting Artist)
Jojo Gronostay (Exhibiting Artist)
Irene Ha (Exhibiting Artist)
PORTFOLIO REVIEW
With the aim to help photographers identify their next step, Fotografiska Days offered free portfolio reviews, with the goal of supporting visual artists with an established and serious approach to their practice in all stages of their careers.
Thirty talented photographers were paired with 10 photo editing, publishing, and curatorial experts and educators, and selected participants subsequently choose experts to review their work. All participants received eight private feedback sessions in total, lasting 20 minutes each.
