Festival La Gacilly-Baden Photo 2023

15 June to 15 October 2023

REBELLIOUS AND DEEPLY ROOTED IMAGES OF HOPE FROM THE ORIENT! A PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY BETWEEN LIGHT AND SHADOW.

from June 15 to October 15, 2023

Europe's largest open-air photo exhibition makes its sixth stop in Baden near Vienna.

This year under the motto ORIENT! In a gigantic open-air gallery, the world's best photographers will show their fascinating worlds of images in the parks and gardens and the city center of Baden.

ORIENT! focuses on photographers from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Three countries that all belong to the Persian cultural area. Three predominantly Muslim countries with Indo-European populations that remain subject to the laws of religion and obscurantism. Three countries that we do not know well, although they have conquered the hearts of all travelers like Marco Polo. Three countries whose photographers are the defenders of positive thinking and ambassadors of environmental awareness. Three countries that are home to a millenary civilization, a unique artistic creativity and courageous authors who have chosen photography to define their place in society.

Photographers who come from these countries have always chosen to break conventions in order to develop an innovative style and look at people and gods with humanism infused in them.

Honor to whom honor is due: Abbas, Gohar Dashti, Ebrahim Noroozi, Maryam Firuzi, Hashem Shakeri, Paul Almasy, Véronique de Viguerie, Fatimah Hossaini, Shah Marai and Wakil Kohsar, Sarah Caron. Since its inception, the festival has never deviated from its mission to show the beauty of nature as much as to address the need to protect it. Through the prism of photography, we want to highlight the challenges of a sustainable world without naivety. At the same time, the sometimes dramatic reality is never disregarded.

All the photographs are signs of our unshakeable faith in the future.The photographers of our festival resolutely want to be witnesses and part of the effort to preserve our most beautiful common asset - the planet Earth: Mélanie Wenger, Bernard Descamps, Gabriele Cecconi, Stephan Gladieu, Money Sharma, Reporters Without Borders, Antonin Borgeaud, Jérôme Blin, Alisa Martynova, Maxime Taillez, Chloé Azzopardi.

The bilateral photo project of the schools of Morbihan in Brittany and Lower Austria is dedicated to the theme of openings in 2023 year. Whether literal or figurative, the concept of openings includes communication and travel to new places or people. Ultimately, it raises the question of the construction of our individual and collective identity and our relationship with others. Photography undoubtedly remains the most incisive tool to change public opinion and to preserve bright spots of humanity.

Austrian photographers Rudolf Koppitz and Horst Stasny also stand in this tradition. From Gregor Schörg, the festival will show the second part of his work on the wilderness area Dürrenstein-Lassingtal. The exhibition of the photografies of the Lower Austrian professional photographers and the exhibition of the winning photos of the world's largest photo competition, 

CEWE's "Our World is Beautiful," will round out the festival, as will the retrospective of 2022 in the images of Artist in Residence Pascal Maitre. 

A photographic highlight is the commissioned work to Cathrine Stukhard, who visited the World Heritage Site of Vichy and placed it in the context of UNESCO's eleven "Great Spa Towns of Europe", which also includes Baden near Vienna.  Under the guiding principle Culture of Solidarity, the cooperation with the festival partners Garden Tulln, Celje in Slovenia and Month of Photography Bratislava will be continued in 2023. 

We are already looking forward to your visit! 

More info's on the festival homepage: www.festival-lagacilly-baden.photo