The Makeable Mind
“I’m not crazy, my reality is just different than yours.” (Cheshire Cat internet meme)
The Noorderlicht International Photo Festival 2021 will take place from 26 June to 12 September 2021 at various locations in the Dutch provinces of Groningen and Friesland. Departing from photography, the festival focuses on the entire spectrum of the image, both analogue and digital: from computer-generated imagery to virtual, mixed and augmented reality, installations, projections and mappings. The theme ‘The Makeable Mind’ will explore the relationship between visual culture and reality: How do visual technologies, communication media, and both mainstream and citizen journalism influence our thinking, and how do they disguise, describe, rewrite and expose our reality?
Flexible realities
The idea that reality is ambiguous is nothing new. There is always that small voice in the back of one’s mind that urges caution when interpreting images that pretend to show reality. But something is fundamentally changing in the way we see the world and in the way it is shown to us. Society is increasingly struggling with the concepts of ‘truth’ and ‘reality’, and image-makers work in the context of this new ambiguity. It is both a game and a struggle at the same time.
SUBMISSIONS
Proposals can be submitted until 15 February 2021.
Noorderlicht International Photo Festival 2021 is looking for new and existing work. Click here for the complete open call. Here you will find the Exhibiton FAQ. For substantive questions about your entry, please contact festival curator Paulien Dresscher: paulien@noorderlicht.com
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The Noorderlicht Festival
Noorderlicht is an international platform for artists who use photography and adjoining media in all its stories, forms and changes to portray their engagement with society. ‘The Makeable Mind’ is the 28th edition of the Noorderlicht International Photo Festival and takes place from 26 June until 12 September 2021 in the provinces Groningen and Friesland.
Paulien Dresscher: festival curator
Paulien Dresscher (NL, 1967) is this year’s guest curator of the Noorderlicht Festival. As an independent curator and researcher in the field of digital culture, she works for PublicSpaces, the Netherlands Film Festival, Into The Great Wide Open and Utrecht University. This year she will be compiling the festival in collaboration with the Noorderlicht-team.
George Knegtel: junior curator
George Knegtel (NL, 1992) is a photographer and junior curator. She lives and works in The Hague and was one of the Young Curators of the Noorderlicht Photo Festival 2019.
Photo above: LAWKI – film still, 2020 | Artists: ARK (Louis Braddock Clarke, Roosje Klap & Zuzanna Zgierska)