Antiparos is probably the smallest of the more popular islands in the Cyclades, and every year since 2013 it has hosted what is arguably the smallest international photography festival in the world. The festival was the brainchild of three people: Mary Chatzaki, who runs the local Anti art gallery; Yannis Bagourdas, an engineer and an enthusiastic amateur photographer; and David Frazer Wray, a long-time summer visitor
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Antiparos is probably the smallest of the more popular islands in the Cyclades, and every year since 2013 it has hosted what is arguably the smallest international photography festival in the world.
The festival was the brainchild of three people: Mary Chatzaki, who runs the local Anti art gallery; Yannis Bagourdas, an engineer and an enthusiastic amateur
photographer; and David Frazer Wray, a long-time summer visitor.We wanted to give something back to the island, says David. Given our mutual
interests, a photography festival seemed the obvious choice. I administer theAntiparos Photo Gallery on Facebook, which has almost 4,000 members roughly
four times the population of Antiparos so we could all see how much interest there is in both the island and the art of photography. "
We started on a very small scale in 2013, with exhibition space in the Anti gallery and in an empty apartment lent by a kind friend. We featured work by local and
Greek photographers and a few excellent amateurs from other countries. We were surprised at the amount of positive response not just from summer visitors but from
the locals too. They really appreciated our effort. In 2014, we decided to upscale. We got permission to use the Kastro the 15th
century Venetian castle in the centre of Antiparos and, for the first time, we exhibited work outdoors on the ancient walls. This brought a few problems. First of all,
the Kastro had been neglected, so we had to clean it, paint it, and light it. And you cant just lock the Kastro at the end of every evening, so all of the photographs had to be taken down, stored and then re-hung the next evening for 10 days! It was also very windy, so we had to tie the photographs to the walls with nylon fishing line! But we had more international participation, and recognition. Our photographers were mostly professional or semi-professional and even renowned Magnum Photos photographer Gueorgui Pinkhassov gave a workshop. But more important than that was the reaction of the locals. Not only were we visibly a serious festival but we had cleaned up the Kastro! People who had virtually lived next-door to it for years were suddenly able to admire it in all its glory and all thanks to a bit of cleaning, painting and lighting.
However, in 2015, funds started to dry up. We had been lucky so far but finally the economic crisis had begun to hit us. We started a crowdfunding project but it didnt provide enough money to cover our costs. On the other hand, photographers were almost queuing up to take part. Our guest of honour that year was Vasilis Artikos one of Greeces most respected photographers. We had contributions from Austria, Switzerland, Great Britain and the USA but we had no money, even though we did manage to give our usual contribution to the local school. We ended up in debt. But we never give up. This year, weve applied for status as an officially registered non-profit organisation, which we have actually been since day one. That would enable us to apply for EU funding, for example. We would probably have had that status by now, were it not for the strike of the Greek Bar Association. No lawyers, no registration, so no money.
On the other hand, we have probably more interest from photographers than ever before. Weve always believed in encouraging new talent and theres so much
talent out there. So far this year, weve got participants from Greece, Italy and France, and submissions are not yet closed. Its crazy. So much interest, so many
photographers wanting to take part and so little money. You might ask me what makes the Antiparos International Photo Festival so unique.
Well, first of all, thats down to the island and the people of the island. Its a special atmosphere. Secondly, as far as I know, we are the only international photo festival to exhibit in the open air. The Kastro makes that very special. But most of all, its down to love. The love that we share for the island, and the love that we have for each other.
This years participations are:
Βernie Steinbach, Daphne Kotsiani,Dino Makridis, Henriette Framnes, Time Leda de Piart, Leonidas Germanopoulos, Leticia Zica, Maria Kalogiorgi, Marilena Grispou, Olga Missirliadou, Panagiotis Kalkavouras Sally Doganis, Travis Feuerbacher, Vassilis Bontosoglou
Yiannis Loukis The Antiparos Photo Gallery
Website: http://antiparosphotofestival.com/#
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/antiparosinternationalphotofestival/
FacebookEvent:https://www.facebook.com/events/533642910175606/?notif_t=plan
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