Festival Photograph Zone

The Festival Fotograf Zone, as a living organism, explores whether we can live in a neighborhood.

The sixteenth edition of the Fotograf Zone festival presents its complete program. From October 1 to 11, it will offer exhibitions of contemporary photography and visual art in Prague, as well as performances, DJ sets, author readings, workshops, lectures, audio walks, a cycling tour of the city, and a communal apple-picking event. Under the theme Wild Kin, this year it focuses on various forms of interspecies coexistence and seeks ways to not only observe but also experience the relationship between humans and other living beings, as well as the environment we share. "This year, we understand the festival as a living organism that connects different experiences and perspectives on the world. Wild Kin is not just a theme for exhibitions. Art here serves more as a training ground for understanding, whether it concerns interspecies coexistence or the search for new possibilities of living together," says Markéta Kinterová, the artistic director of Fotograf Zone. The main festival exhibition will be "Neighbors" by the renowned German photographer Jochen Lempert at the Fotograf Zone gallery. The artist, with a background in natural sciences, has long worked with analog black-and-white photography, observing animals, plants, people, and the environment they inhabit together. His photographs capture small encounters and relationships that often go unnoticed in everyday life. At TYRŠ the human lab, Polina Davydenko, Oleksij Radynski, Thérèse Anna Rafter, and Dominik Styk will present their work. In the public space of Holešovická tržnice, visitors will be able to encounter works by Anetta Mony Chisa and Lukáš Prokop. Thus, the festival leaves the traditional gallery space and brings contemporary art directly into the everyday city environment. The festival program will also offer various opportunities to engage with the theme through body, movement, conversation, or imagination. At the opening on October 1, Nela Kováč Britaňáková will present her performance "Aleuron Grain," in which she connects ceramics with spatial installations and explores the relationship between body, material, and space. During the closing evening, Azolla Collective will perform "Asphalt Lovers," where three hybrid beings in an abandoned urban landscape grapple with loneliness, frustration, and failure, seeking ways of belonging and cohabiting the world. The cycling tour through Prague will connect Holešovická tržnice with the Fotograf Zone gallery and conclude at the opening of the "Neighbors" exhibition. At the apple-picking event in the orchards of Troja Castle, prepared in collaboration with the Gallery of the Capital City of Prague, visitors will be able to gather apples together and reflect on seasonality, sharing, and the relationship to a specific place. The theme of interspecies coexistence will also be opened up by workshops. Anna Mírková in "Social Worlds of the River: What Does It Mean to Neighbor with the Vltava?" will offer a perspective on the river as a living neighbor through drawing, conversation, and imagination. The workshop and performance by Denisa Půbalová, "Playground for Soft Measures," will work with foam, dough, bubbles, and other changing materials, seeking different ways of perceiving the relationship between body and environment through touch, smell, and taste. Lectures will also be included. Radan Haluzík, in his contribution "Nature in the City, or the City in Nature?" will open the question of urban nature and the forms of the city of the future, while Gabriela Benish-Kalná in her lecture "Anxiety of Multispecies Care" will present topics of agriculture, climate adaptation, and care for ecosystems. Šárka Zahálková's audio walk "Exchanging Goods and Services" will offer a different reading of Holešovická tržnice and the relationships between human and non-human beings that inhabit it. The program will be complemented by author readings, DJ sets, and screenings. In collaboration with Elpidou, an event "Voices of the Elderly" will take place, showcasing photographs of seniors from a photography course at the Elpida Center, followed by a discussion. Thus, the Fotograf Zone festival this year will connect several different environments: gallery, cultural institutions, public space, urban landscape, and places that are not usually perceived as exhibition spaces. Wild Kin is an invitation to perceive the city, landscape, other living organisms, and other people as part of a shared environment. Detailed program and information about individual events can be found HERE.