The Water Tower Art Fest calls for participants for its 2014 project Agentur Schwimmer from Berlin.
photographers artists interested people are becoming local correspondents
The Berlin based art project Agentur Schwimmer (swimmer agency) opens a temporary regional office with local correspondents from Feb.20th to March 4th in Sofia.
The local correspondents work on a multidimensional, fragmented picture of political, social, economic and administrative processes in Sofia and Bulgaria in general. The results will be presented on the Water tower art fest in June 2014 and integrated into www.agentur-schwimmer.de
Agentur Schwimmer works as an artistic model. At its core it functions like a photo press agency that offers pictures taken at incidents, events and in places that are commonly considered newsworthy.
A photographic press agency is a public space which determines the ways the political is perceived.
News is what is accepted as such.
Agentur Schwimmer creates a platform for photographic perspectives dealing with the inner workings of society. It facilitates the visual understanding of processes that are relevant to the public. It offers a vision of how news events can be told outside of conventions and economic constraints. The photographer’s attitude while taking the photo plays a key role when selecting images for Agentur Schwimmer.
Introduction of Agentur Schwimmer and the local correspondents network on feb 20 th at 16h in Photographic Gallery Rubber – street Gerlovo 13, (between Shpka street and Oborishte) Sofia
map
Further meetings by agreement.
Sibylle Hofter, one of the project founders may coordinate and support each participant’s photo sessions according to their wishes and skills.
If desired project participants can become familiar with basic image processing and selection criteria in one-on-one or small group meetings.
LOCAL CORRESPONDENTS details:
concept
the participants will work on a multi focal portrait of the inner workings of the society.
how are things organised? who are the human beings behind the news?
We go INTO the situations: we go to the party meeting of our political opponents as well as we go to manifestations against their politics. each theme we work on becomes stronger if we cover different levels.
even if we think the actors are not worthwhile to take them serious as human beings we look closely, and we look closely on their environment: who works for them? who is listening?
we work beyond schemes. although we have or develop attitude.
I myself I tend to look closely at the political or economical actors who push the world in a fatal direction. I try to visually understand what is their network like.
of course participants understand the work in different ways. as an arts project and not dependent on sales we take the freedom not to use images as tools. Our images should develop their power from inside.
Thats why technical means are not crucial. Its usually just easier to find stronger images with good equipment. The same with experience. The same with dedication.
according to the participants interests and possibilities we concentrate on actual political discourse as well as on the general organisation of society.
Me personally I´m specially interested on adminstration, staged democracy, on the classical institutions which organise a society.
My role as a foreigner is different from the role of the participants who are experts in their own society. As a language ignorant I am as deaf as my camera. I have to rely 100 % on what I am able to see. The participants approach the project from a diamentrically opposed direction: They are familiar and possibly bored or enraged on the situation. “At the end of the day” all the perspectives will be positioned in dialogues between each other.
practically
since each participant works self-consistant, it is possible to work the 10 days exclusively on the project or to participate part-time parallel to a regular job etc.
project language is english.
we start with a public presentation of the Agentur Schwimmer agency project.
after the public left we figure out our focuses (special interests or knowledges) and structure the work:
like the agency the CITY DESK consists of the classical sections:
politics
economy
social
culture and research
sports and leisure
(sub-sections you’ll find on the website or at the end of this text)
at the first meeting we will have prepared schedules for several events or sites to be continued during the project time.
national parliament, city council. governmental press events. manifestations. political activists. contacts to marginalised or stigmatised groups of society. court cases. conferences, panels and lectures eg on environment, ressources, development, inclusion, economy. trade faires. municipal administration. political party meetings. companies. basics: education, health, pensioners, public affairs.
depending on the size of an event one or more participants will go to cover it. the variety of individual priorities will hopefully lead to a broad bandwidth of subjects.
since we – the organisers – work on a voluntary base we need – according to capacities – the participants cooperation in organising further permissions.
participants who work primarily or exclusively on the editors side (research, organisation, selection, image processing) welcome.
participants will receive Agentur Schwimmer IDs
the entire group gathers on the scheduled “editorial meetings” to watch the results, to feedback, to make a rough concept for temporary uploads to the website. and to structure the continuation.
individual meetings to work on subjects or series will be held any time by appointment and they are open for interested participants.
copy/rights
each author legally is the publisher of his series: s/he has to take responsibility on the content (specially if his/her uploads contain copyright- or personal rights infringement).
s/he can publish his/her works elsewhere – hopefully with a hint on the wtaf Agentur Schwimmer context.
in case of a sale via the agency the author gets 80% of the income.
the author has also the right either not to sell licenses or to publish under creative commons license. if a photographer is contracted sales may done exclusively by his contract partner.
Generally the uploaded images should stay on the website. To withdraw images the author should have severe reasons.
Deadline for applying 07 February.
Attendance is with fee of 50lv.paid in advance!
Working language is English.
Materials needed- working camera.
No previous education is needed to participate, as well as there is no restriction of age
For contacts:
watertowerartfest@gmail.com
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