Asia Pacific Photoforum launched

Media Release – 8 November 2010

Asia Pacific Photoforum launched

New Zealand’s Auckland Festival of Photography has teamed up with six other leading international photography festivals in Ballarat, Canberra, Fremantle, Queensland, Sydney in Australia and Pingyao in China to promote photography across the Asia Pacific region. The festivals have joined forces to establish the Asia Pacific Photoforum.

The Auckland Festival of Photography is part of the newly established Asia Pacific Photo forum, which aims to build on photography’s wide appeal across borders as a means of artistic expression and disseminating ideas and information.

The Asia Pacific Photoforum aims to support photographers and photography festivals across the region, with member festivals working together to share ideas, strengthen festival programmes and potentially mentor the establishment of new festivals.

Information about the organisation and its member festivals can be found at:

http://asiapacificphotoforum.org/index.html
The Asia Pacific Photoforum is the most significant international festival group in the region and is modelled on a similar worldwide coalition of selected festivals called Festival of Light.

Asia Pacific Photoforum media spokesperson Julia Durkin said it made sense for the region’s photography festivals to work together more closely.

“There is a growing interest in photography as an art form and recreational activity and creating the Asia Pacific Photoforum is part of an overall strengthening of cultural, economic and sporting ties in the region,” Ms Durkin said.

“The Asia Pacific Photoforum is dedicated to providing high quality public festivals that celebrate photographers and their work in our own communities, cities and countries. Creating this consortium represents a great opportunity for us to build audiences for photography across the Asia Pacific region, home to a significant proportion of the world's population. There is a growing recognition, across borders, of the importance of photography in our daily lives. Photography is a universal language.”

As well as promoting photography festivals, the Asia Pacific Photoforum aims to host festival directors from other festivals to gain first hand experience of exhibitions and events. This will enable them to meet local photographers and curators, and collaborate to bring in key international artists and exhibitions. As well as helping enrich existing festival programmes, the Asia Photo Forum ultimately hopes to mentor the establishment of new festivals in other cities and countries in the Asia Pacific region.

ENDS

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