Foto8 Reviews: Backlight 05 <link href="../../stylesheets/01style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all"> <style type="text/css" media="screen"></style> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" link="#333333" vlink="#333333" text="#333333"> <div align="center"> <table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="2" width="694"> <tr>></span> Reviews: Bl <td valign="top" bgcolor="#80c31b" width="186"> <div align="left"> <span class="white"><span class="bigtext"><a href="../../index.html"><font color="white">foto8</font></a></span></span><br> <a href="../index.html">R<span class="titletext">eviews</span></a><br> <br> <br> <img src="resources/backlight.jpg" alt="" height="141" width="143" border="0"><br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <font color="#f0f0f0"><span class="bold"><span class="text">title: Backlight 05<br> time: 2 September – 15 January<br> place: Tampere, Finland<br> </span></span></font><font color="#646464"><span class="bold"><span class="text"><a href="http://www.backlight.fi" target="_new">www.backlight.fi</a></span></span></font><a href="http://www.channelphotographics.com" target="_new"><span class="text"><span class="bold"><br> </span></span></a><span class="text"><span class="bold"><br> <br> </span><a href="#"><font color="#646464"> <script language="JavaScript"> function passPage(){ document.form.whatTitle.value = document.title; document.form.whatPage.value = location.href; document.form.submit(document.form.whatPage, document.form.whatTitle); } </script> <table width="80" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" height="30"> <tr> <td align="center" valign="middle"> <form name="form" method="POST" action="../../emailPage/emailPage.php"> <input type="hidden" name="whatTitle"> <input type="hidden" name="whatPage"> </form> <span style="cursor:hand;" onclick="passPage();"><img src="../../emailPage/faviconBlack.jpg"></span></td> </tr> </table> </font></a></span><br class="minitext"> </div> </td> <td bgcolor="white" valign="top" align="center"> <div align="left"> <table border="0" cellpadding="7" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tr height="105%"> <td width="50%" valign="top" align="left" height="105%"> <p><span class="bold"><span class="text">Backlight 05</span></span><br> <span class="text"><br> <br> <br> At a time when cultural globalisation threatens to smother indigenous cultural ideas, a photography festival such as Backlight 05, held every three years since 1987 in Tampere, Finland – an ex-textile town known as “the Manchester of Finland” – represents a challenge. By combining Finnish and international photography curated by Finnish and international curators, Backlight both highlights national differences and at the same time collapses them onto the same plane of photography. With 60 international photographers and 16 from Finland gathered into two main, themed shows and two parallel exhibitions, Backlight proved to be a mixed blessing.</span><br> <br> <span class="text">Despite its emphasis on documentary photography, the problem, in part, with Backlight lay in the ambiguity of the themes chosen by its artistic director, Ulrich Haas-Pursiainen, “Untouchable Things” at the Museum Center Vapriikki and “Spells of Childhood” at the Tampere Art Museum. The other two shows, a Gerhard Richter show at the Sara Hilden Art Museum and Frontal 7, an exhibition of Thomas Ruff’s students from the Düsseldorf Art Academy, enhanced by some pictures of those Düsseldorfers, par excellence, Bernd and Hilla Becher, at the photographic centre Nykyaika, had little coherence with the main event. The two main shows both featured a variety of individual exhibitions based around the theme of childhood. This delineation appeared arbitrary. A sense of dreamy romanticism hung over the “Untouchable Things”shows by Stratos Kalafatis, Vesselina Nikolaeva, Maïder Fortuné, Giuseppe Toscano, Margherita Verdi, Christina Zamagni, and Anni Leppälä—who won the Backlight 05 Award. To be sure, the concept is vague: spells are untouchable. </span></p> </td> <td width="50%" valign="top" align="left" height="105%"> <p><span class="text"><br> <br> <br> <br> However, their emphasis on childhood might have led them to be better placed in the museum rather than in the ex-mill space of the Vapriikki. There were several hard hitting exhibitions that did touch squarely on the notion of the untouchable including: Peter Granser’s Alzheimers series, and Harri Pälviranta’s imagery from old prison cells.</span><br> <br> <span class="text">“Spells of Childhood,” on the other hand, did feature some tough work, notably Soody Sharifi’s images of Iranian teenagers, a selection of Larry Clark’s Tulsa work, and Donavan Wylie’s “Losing Ground” series of down and out travellers. This work is in sharp contradistinction to classic imagery by Lewis Carroll and August Sander whose works served as a mirror to the extremes of romantic and documentary aesthetics.</span><br> <br> <span class="text">What Backlight 05 has to say about the state of photography is unclear. There was a lot of interesting work and some work that was less compelling. The opportunity, though, to see such a wide range of international photography is important. The real question is: for how much longer will that be possible? A festival like Backlight lets us enjoy the differences while they last.<br> </span><span class="bold"><span class="text">BK</span></span></p> </td> </tr> </table> </div> </td> </tr> </table> <span class="text"><br> All Rights Reserved © foto8 2005 </span></div> <p></p> </body> </html>