About the Festival
Created with the goal of exhibiting, promoting, supporting and developing the works of Slovenian and international artists and building a strong and lasting platform for contemporary photography, the festival aims to bring together emerging and established photographers from all over the world. It transforms the town of Kranj into an exciting hub of contemporary photography in this part of Europe.
Kranj Foto Fest was created in 2021 in the midst of a pandemic that challenged our sense of boundaries and our perception of freedom. In this context, the festival addressed the highly topical subject of ISOLATION | FREEDOM in an attempt to stimulate awareness and understanding of the turbulent times in which we find ourselves immersed.
The old town of Kranj was transformed into an open-air gallery, where empty windows received new roles and meanings as frames, bringing colour to streets that had become far too used to the various lockdown scenarios we saw.
Kranj is a unique place to host a photo festival: the medieval history of the town mixes with both the present and the future with a view to innovation and creativity. It was here that in 1842, Janez Puhar – the first Slovenian photographer – created a unique process of reproducing photography on glass.
Having this remarkable historical context as a backdrop, Kranj Foto Fest has been created to celebrate photography and its larger significance. It represents a platform for dialogue between photographers, students, curators, educators, photo enthusiasts, and the local community.
In 2022, the festival aims to lay the foundations for just such a dialogue, bringing different views, cultures, and generations together. With this year’s edition, we challenge photographers to (re)present their views on a traditional yet extremely contemporary and complex concept: HOME, and all the many layers this word represents.
Through photography, we deal with demanding issues such as displacement in the face of climate change, natural disasters, armed conflicts, gentrification, unaffordable living conditions and unjust social policies. Furthermore, we present personal narratives on migration and the sense of belonging (or not) to a particular territory and its culture. Through photography, we showcase the intimate stories we experience in places where we feel temporary, and the memories connected to home and the lands of our families.
Home: A State of Transition. Place. Displacement. Migration. On the move. Integration. Homeland. What are the triggers behind migration, and what are the personal narratives (sometimes photographers are the migrants themselves) behind the statistics? Can one live in a state of “permanent transition,” moving from one place to another? Is home always a synonym for land, or can one feel at home anywhere, regardless of the physical territory? Or simply not feel at home at all – neither here nor there? Where are the borders that delineate our home?
For a whole month, Kranj is transformed into an exciting stage that welcomes everyone to exchange experiences through photography. This year’s programme includes exhibitions of more than 40 photographers, round tables, artist talks, workshops, night projections, and guided tours in the scenic old town at the warm height of summer.
We invite you to join us for this compelling and timely debate, to reflect on the idea of “home” and how photography can somehow make it better.
Fernanda Prado Verčič
The Team Behind The Scenes
DIRECTOR: Fernanda Prado Verčič
ORGANIZATIONAL AND CURATORIAL COMMITTEE: Barbara Čeferin (Head of the Board), Ciril Jazbec, Fernanda Prado Verčič
PRODUCED by Photo Dialogue – zavod za vizualno umetnost
Kranj Foto Fest was founded in 2021 by Fernanda Prado Verčič and Petra Puhar Kejžar.
PHOTOS: Maša Pirc and Luka Dakskobler