UrbanPhotoFest 2016: Programme of Events

Festival dates: 3 – 8 November 2016

The organisers of the 2016 International UrbanPhotoFest (UPF) are delighted to announce an exciting schedule of events for this year’s festival run over six days.  UrbanPhotoFest will appeal to photographers, artists, film-makers, and those interested in urban theory and research, and includes a two-day conference, a master-class with Mango Lab, Seminars with London Independent Photography (LIP) and the British Library, workshops, walks, portfolio review and a new Urban Photo Village exploring this year’s theme of Photography, Memory and Archive.

The Festival starts with an artist’s keynote from the internationally renowned urban photographer Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen at Tate Modern on Thursday 3 November, followed by a wine reception and launch event. The finalists and winners of this year’s UrbanPhotoFest Open competition will also be announced at the Tate event.

This year’s highlights include the annual Urban Encounters conference held over two days at Goldsmiths University London (4 & 5 November), with a keynote conversation between photographer James Barnor and sociologist Rachel Pepper. Other confirmed speakers include: Rachel Lichtenstein, Daniel Cid, Hrair Sarkissian, Jessica Murray, Ingrid Pollard, Stephen Mayers, Alice Maude-Roxby, Judy Price, Esther Windsor, Tiong Ang. We anticipate a packed audience for this free conference, and ticket reservations on a first-come-first-served basis can be made via the main festival website at: www.urbanphotofest.org. Once the tickets have been allocated, we will run a waiting list.

Additionally, we will run an Urban Photo Village for the first time this year, with ten exhibitions all within walking distance of each other. Tanya Houghton, the festival artist will be showing her work A Migrant’s Tale from 3 to 8 November at MMX gallery, The Urban Photographers’ Association (UPA) will have its annual members’ exhibition, Urban Memories, at the Lewisham Art House from 3 to 12 November, Artist Rut Blees Luxemburg, will be exhibiting her work at the Bear Space, Deptford High Street from 3 to 8 November, and graduates from Goldsmiths’ MA Photography and Urban Cultures will be exhibiting at St James Hatcham (Goldsmiths) from 3 to 8 November. For a full exhibitions listing, please visit the festival website.

Paul Halliday, Creative Director of UrbanPhotoFest comments:

“We wanted to focus on the relationship between memory and some of the processes around the construction of archives. This is a key theme for photographers, artists and urbanists working around collective memory, and it is clear that as much as there is a politics of representation, there’s also a ‘politics of absence’ insofar as some things, communities and people are considered worthy of inclusion within archives, whilst others are comprehensibly absented. The debates around such cultural processes resonate deeply with image-makers concerned with how we tell stories of cities.”

For further information about the festival programme, please visit the website at www.urbanphotofest.org.

Please direct any press enquiries to Paul Halliday at: director@urbanphotofest.org

Website:          http://www.urbanphotofest.org

Facebook:       https://www.facebook.com/UrbanPhotoFest

Twitter:            https://twitter.com/UrbanPhotoFest

Hashtag:          #UPF16

Conference:    http://www.tate.org.uk/download/file/fid/52721