Beer and chocolate at the Open Book Market were kindly sponsored by Fur Bryghus and Simply Chocolate. A special thank you to the participating book sellers and publishers Disco Bay, bt:st Verlag, Blankt Papir Press, Fragment, Galleri Image, NW Gallery Cph, Bladr, Wunderbuch, Roulette Russe, Book Lab.
In this edition, we examined the theme “Flatness”, both in a metaphorical and in a literal sense. One of our key shows in this framework was New Topographics in Photobooks, curated by Thomas Wiegand. It featured selected works of the main participants of the legendary exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape and its lasting effect on landscape photography, as well as reactions and parallels especially from Germany. Other exhibitions questioned the seemingly flat surface of the book: Book objects, leporello books, foldable maps and other techniques that defy the flatness of the page, were in the center of our attention.
The festival’s regional theme was Chilean and Swedish photobooks. Another highlight was Asia 8, featuring the winners of the Steidl Book Award in collaboration with the Singapore International Photo Festival. The Rebellious Photobook, curated by Jose Luis Neves (watch his talk at PWA15), was a small showcase of books that attempted to deconstruct the inherent ‘flatness’ of the page, either by subverting the reading process or exploring the material orthodoxy of the codex.
Other important exhibitions featured Lasse Krog Møller’s oeuvre at the Aros Museum and Stijn Van der Linden’s brand new essay on the concave city corner, at Dokk1 Library. Of course, we showed the Kassel Dummies again, and enjoyed talks about the past and present of the photobook medium. Our speakers this year included specialists such as Reinhard Matz, Irina Chmyreva, Niclas Östlind, Luis Weinstein, and Tatiana Sardá.
An open forum around the photobook Photobook Week Aarhus 2019 was the 6th edition of the festival, and a collaboration between Galleri Image and Aarhus School of Architecture. This year, PWA was part of Art Weekend Aarhus, and continued its collaboration with Unseen Amsterdam, Fotobookfestival Kassel, PhotoIreland Festival and other international platforms for photobooks.
Photobook Week Aarhus represents a continuous study of the evolution and role of the medium. The festival is curated by national and international experts under the leadership of Chief Curator Moritz Neumüller and the curatorial team: Anne Elisabeth Toft, Beate Cegielska and Jesper Rasmussen.
PWA 2019 was supported by the Politiken Foundation, The Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nationalbankens Jubilæumsfond, Instituto Camões via Embassy of Portugal, Dreyers Fond and the City of Aarhus (Kulturudviklingspuljen).
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