Festival of Political Photography wants to thank you for 2021!

The fifth edition of the Festival of Political Photography Bird's-Eye View is over. We thank all our supporters, partners and the festival audience!

The festival will continue as a biennial and the exact date of the next exhibition will be announced later.

PVF’s year 2021
supporters and partners: 

Video presentations of PVF mentees' projects

Naser Bayat, Shia Conlon, and Noora Sandgren, three photographers selected for the mentoring programme 2021 of the Festival of Political Photography, will be describing their photography projects in video presentations. 

With his project Hope as Home, Naser Bayat looks for the meanings of hope for Afghans who have come to Finland as refugees: 
Naser Bayat: Hope as Home (in english)

Shia Conlon's project, titled Sites of Dreaming, explores the process of hormone therapy in the experience of diverse transgender people in Finland:
Shia Conlon: Sites of Dreaming (in english)

In her project Working with neighbor (s): Helsinki Central Park / Forest, Noora Sandgren explores coexistence and gestures of reciprocity by creating images with diverse agencies of the forest terrain:
Noora Sandgren: Working with neighbor (s): Helsinki Central Park / Forest (in english)

More info about the mentoring programme.

Thank you Patricia Seppälä Foundation for supporting the mentoring programme!

Some of the festival artists will be present at the exhibition on 8 October from 16:00–17:30. You are warmly invited to view the exhibition and talk to the artists about their work.

Those present will include at least Francesca Todde, the Rorhof cooperative, Demelza Kooij, Kristo Muurimaa, Jorma Luhta and the Festival Artistic Directors Sanni Seppo and Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger.

Venue: Finnish Museum of Photography, Cable Factory, Helsinki.

Admission: Finnish Museum of Photography ticket or the Museum Card.

Many thanks to the Italian Cultural Institute for support.

The fifth Festival of Political Photography opens at the Finnish Museum of Photography on 8 October 2021. The exhibition Bird's-Eye View is open until 6 January 2022.

What if a crow could take photographs? What kinds of photos would it take? What would the world look like through the eyes of a bird? The festival reflects, through photography, on the capacity of humans to imagine the perspective of birds and to understand the world in an alternate way through that lens. 

The festival approaches the avian gaze both from a bird’s eye view and as a broader effort to understand the animal gaze – to understand what the world would look like through the eyes of a bird. Perceiving other species’ viewpoints and ways of life through information and imagination increases the empathy that is vital for the coexistence of humans and other species. The festival also illuminates human blindness to the species loss occurring around us – more than a third of Finnish birds are already threatened with extinction. Will birdsong survive only as background music in shopping centre corridors?

The festival consists of an expansive exhibition at the Finnish Museum of Photography and an ancillary programme based on the exhibition theme. The PVF exhibition ‘Bird’s Eye View’ is the first Finnish Museum of Photography ensemble to open at the Cable Factory exhibition space in Helsinki since its renovation. 

This year the festival wants to increase accessibility and lower the threshold for taking part, especially by offering material related to the exhibition in several languages. The introductory text unpacking the theme of the festival is available on the festival website in Finnish, English, Swedish, Northern Saami, Russian, Arabic and Somali.

Photographers and artists featured:
Camille Auer, Marek Jancovic, Hiwa K, Demelza Kooij, Jorma Luhta, Kristo Muurimaa & Juho Kerola, Tuula Närhinen, Anne Roininen, Rorhof, Leena Saarinen, Francesca Todde and Under Threat Working Group.


The festival’s supporters and partners:

 the Saastamoinen Foundation, the City of Helsinki, the Finnish Museum of Photography, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Patricia Seppälä Foundation, Pro Av Saarikko, Värinä,  the Tringa ornithological society, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, Voima and Tradeka Cooperative.

Read more about the 2021 Festival of Political Photography: Bird’s Eye View ︎︎︎

MENTORIng ProgramME 2021

The Festival of Political Photography (PVF) has launched a mentoring programme for photographers and artists, aimed at supporting their work on long-term research-based projects. Of the 32 high-standard applications received through the open call for 2021, three photographers were selected for the inaugural programme: Naser Bayat, Shia Conlon, and Noora Sandgren.

The Festival of Political Photography wants to encourage photographers to engage in long‑term visually oriented research. Dedicated photography projects require both considerable material and intellectual resources from photographers. Often, a lack of professional feedback and limits to practical resources pose further challenges for photographers working independently. Therefore, PVF strives to provide professional support and practical resources to photographers working on longer-term projects.

The mentoring programme supports projects and photographers individually, in accordance with case-specific needs. In the course of the year, the photographers selected for the programme will receive professional feedback and support for deepening their examination of the topic, structuring the work, finding suitable pictorial form, and editing the visual material. In addition, selected projects will be supported with a working grant.

The mentoring programme is an independent part of the activities of the Festival of Political Photography and is realised with the generous support of the Patricia Seppälä Foundation.

︎︎︎ Read more about mentoring program projects and artists