Bristol Photo Festival is a new and innovative festival, commissioning and producing exhibitions biannually across the city, alongside an ongoing programme of talks, events, workshops and training through a partnership model of collaboration. The festival provides platforms for national, international, student and emerging photographers, and an extensive outreach and engagement programme with schools, community groups, third level educational institutions, charities and libraries.
A Sense of Place
To photograph a place is to describe a location that has been shaped, nurtured and even contested. It can define the frontier between nature and culture and hint at the complexities of ownership and access. It can be attended by competing narratives and polarised histories, whether they lean left or right.
It can shape our understanding of the world and the qualities that come to define us and it can be about belonging, about appreciation and knowing a place so well that it is like no other. The components of cultural landscape elements play a significant role in defining the sense of place. These components are people, landform, water bodies, climate, economy, social, political which influence on the identity of place.
Bristol Photo Festival is a Community Interest Company run by a small Board of Trustees, a number of core staff with the support of a creative committee.
The Board are: Rudi Thoemmes, Eleanor Macnair, Alejandro Acin, James Barnett and Tracy Marshall. At the core of Bristol Photo Festival is our collaborations and our partnerships, which have been key to the development and roll out of the festival.
The Creative Committee are: Amak Mahmoodian, Natasha Christia, Sarah Allen, Mikael Techane and Marina Paulenka.
Festival Chair | Rudi Thoemmes
Festival Director | Alejandro Acín
director@bristolphotofestival.org
Press Manager | Eleanor Macnair
press@bristolphotofestival.org
Engagement and Education Director | Ben G Thomas
engagement@bristolphotofestival.org
Project Assistant | Safia Belhaj
General enquiries | info@bristolphotofestival.org
CULTURAL AND COMMUNITY PARTNERS
Arnolfini | British Culture Archive | Bristol Archives | Bristol Galleries & Museums | Firecracker | IC Visual Lab | James Hyman | Martin Parr Foundation | RRB Publishing | Royal Photographic Society | St. Pauls Community Darkrooms | The Real Photographic Company | Royal West Academy | Spike Island | University of the West England | Watershed | Wellspring Settlement | University of Bristol | Brigstow Institute | The Georgian House Museum | Wellspring Settlement | Creative Shift | Golden Key Partnership | SOIL Association | Bristol Educational Partnership | Bristol Food Network
FUNDING PARTNERS
ARTS COUNCIL OF ENGLAND | BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL
SPONSORS
WEX PHOTO VIDEO | SPECTRUM | SCHRODERS | HAINES WATTS | PUREPRINT GROUP | TAYLOR BROTHERS | PERMAJET | GF SMITH | BREAD & BUTTER
MEDIA PARTNERS
The Guardian | 1000 words | BRISTOL 24/7 | 1854 & British Journal of Photography | Elephant