World Biennial of Student Photography 2015

World Biennial of Student Photography 2015 The long-standing practice that this manifestation has been nourishing, now traditionally, within projects realised at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, has yet again emphasised its primary aim: the promotion of photographic art and practice as a medium studied at higher educational institutions worldwide. Every alternate December, for the past ten years, Novi Sad becomes the centre of student photography offering a cross-section view of student production at an international level. The substantial benefit of the project conceived in such a manner is reflected in the fact that an insight into the present state of student production, various curriculums, creative consciousness and teaching engagements can be obtained (not only by students of art colleges/academies, but by their professors too). The versatility of photography as a discipline - from a vernacular practice, through a document to an artistic expression - is ubiquitous and evident in the final setting of the received works displayed at the exhibition. The imperative of this years-long project, thus, is not a mere representation of student photography works from around the world, but also the popularisation of this art, within the young artists’ engagement, as well as their own promotion. Put simply, the World Biennial of Student Photography has been bringing nearer photographic art to the young for more than ten years, but at the same time it has been bringing nearer young photographers-artists to the wider auditorium. This practice has proved to be a constant within qualitative cultural and artistic projects realised by the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, and it will surely have more opportunities to prove itself as such in the years to come.

Prof. Siniša Bokan

Novi Sad Biennial Our experience and understanding of the institutions of everyday life – such as current affairs, fashion, advertising, anthropology and so on, is in large part informed by photography. Images are the fall-out from the vernacular and professional functions of these fields – all have their codes and conventions, and although we can generally recognise which discipline any image might originate from, being able to create a photograph appropriate to any of these particular categories is a different matter. It requires strategic, technical skills and the knowledge and experience of the particular field and how best to represent it. The products on offer in imaging technology by the multi-nationals have changed the nature of skills required by photographers. Digital technologies have put more tools and possibilities within the reach of photographers at all levels - not only the offering relatively cheap, instant and reliable image production, but also the possibility of the affordable production of books and professional low budget video. As is well known, this transformation has also absorbed parts of the production process causing many previous skills of photographers and film makers to fall into obsolescence. The study of photography in Universities and Academies of Arts suggests an exploration of the medium for its own sake – setting students off on a journey through a world of images, materials and ideas. This programme of study brings photography into a dialogue with a number of fields where it is employed, but perhaps most notably with art. Photography’s relationship to Art is in a constant and turbulent state of re-invention and adjustment, but what is certain is that it seems to be playing a bigger role than ever, either as the main element in a work, or as a subsidiary part of larger project. As contemporary art has come to depend less on single specific mediums and more on the presentation of themes and ideas, the role of photography seems to be increasing. The ubiquity of images and their means of production has also contributed to a renewed interest in analogue image-making. For many, while digital technologies are a part of everyday experience of photographic practice, the root of its magic still lies in film, chemistry, materials and the darkroom, with all the associations of self-expression and authenticity that this implies. ‘Fine Art Photography’ – which originated from an impulse to imitate classical painting – has given way to perhaps a more realistic narrative in which painting, photography, printmaking and video are subordinate to a wider historical continuum of image making. In a period where the merits of photography are not so strictly located in any one particular orthodoxy, it seems to be something of a golden age for image making. In spite of this resurgence, some will ask whether, in an age of near infallible cameras there is really any point in studying photography. The answer must be that if we want it to be, the study of photography extends far beyond the taking and making of pictures. When we ask ourselves what the images that surround us are telling us, we are also studying our relationship to that image of the world we hold in our minds, and photography provides the opportunity to make that image visible, at least in part, and to provide a starting point for wide-ranging discussions. To create and to study images and their manifestations and organise them into coherent presentations – whether in fashion, art or documentary – is to both explore and to create an image of the world and to communicate the insights and pleasures that might result – and what could be more worthwhile than that?

Allan Parker

source: file:///C:/Users/pc/Downloads/Tsoumani%20Aggelina%20certificate.pdf

Siniša Bokan