Press release: Open call for Eastreet 4
What is Eastreet
The fourth instalment of Eastreet, a project dedicated to street and documentary photography of Eastern Europe, is on the horizon and the Open Call for submissions has just launched!
Eastreet 4 is one of the biggest initiatives promoting street photography from Eastern Europe. The previous three editions have seen almost 20,000 photographs submitted from photographers all over the world! And in those three editions, more than 300 photos by authors from 22 countries were presented in form of exhibition and publication! Those numbers will all certainly rise with Eastreet 4 coming this fall in Lublin, Poland!
The goal of Eastreet is to create a diverse portrait of the complex region through its photography exhibition and book publication. The event looks to have a closer look at human presence within the public spaces of Eastern Europe through a selection of photos documenting unique moments, ideas or symbols. Eastreet is looking for:
“candid photos which can help us to visually describe the region, present its current state and unique qualities, but also photos that will encourage us to look at Eastern Europe beyond stereotypes, borders and differences.”
Their intention is to present a group portrait of people in public spaces of Eastern European cities. The curators and organisers pose questions like: what kind of changes do they experience and what kind of interactions do they participate in? How does an individual shape her/his environment, how does it influence our life, how do we interact with it?
Eastreet believes the formula of street photography fits ideally to this subject matter, but not in a narrow, conventional way: the exhibition may feature also broadly defined documentary photography (as long as they are individual photographs, not series). Eastreet aims to explore the borders of the genre, look for new styles, new names, fresh ideas. Last, but not least – they desire to promote the street photographers working in this part of the world and build a platform for exchange of ideas, dialog and inspiration.
The best photos selected by a group of Curators are being presented in a form of a gallery exhibition, as well as an additional outdoor installation in the Lublin’s city centre. Eastreet will also publish a special book presenting all the selected photographs together with authors’ biographies. Each participating author will receive the book free of charge, by post, soon after its premiere at the exhibition opening. The publication will be also distributed within a specially selected group of international institutions, galleries, artists and curators.
Eastreet Opening
The opening of Eastreet 4 will take place on 20 October 2017 at the Centre for the Meeting of Cultures in Lublin, Poland, but the exhibition will be traveling after the initial show comes to an end. The previous exhibitions have been presented at the Organ Vida Festival in Croatia, Kolga Festival in Georgia, Odessa/Batumi Photo Days, also in France, Belgium, and as a slideshow at the Angkor Photo Festival in Cambodia, in Thailand and at other locations. So far approximately 20,000 people have visited Eastreet in total. Eastreet would like to reach as wide audiences as possible to promote the art of photography and photographers from Eastern Europe, to present their work in galleries, at festivals and at other institutions, as well as to attract the attention of international curators. The idea of Eastreet is constantly evolving, and they would like it to become a platform for communication, education and inspiration for photographers working in the region. The Eastreet project was initiated by Tomasz Kulbowski in 2013 and the curators are: Joanna Kinowska, Aleksander Bochenek, Tomasz Kulbowski and Grzegorz Ostrega.
Submit your photos
Time is of the essence if you want to submit your photos for this big event! Open call starts now and runs through July 23rd! Participation in the project and submission of photos is FREE, Selected authors will be contacted and the list of names published by August 23rd. Eastreet will accept all photographs documenting the public space of Eastern Europe (see countries list below). Especially photos belonging or related to the street photography genre, which we define as candid photographs of human (or traces of human presence, activity, environment, etc.) taken within the public space. Photographs should not be a series, but individual, single images, containing a unique moment, capturing the spontaneous scene or meaning, and be open to interpretation.
Eastreet will accept photos taken in the (broadly defined) Eastern Europe. The author’s home location is not relevant. One person can submit up to 10 photos. There is no specific time frame in which photographs should be taken, but they prefer contemporary photographs presenting the current shape of Eastern Europe, so they suggest to submit the photos taken after the year 2000.
The list of applicable countries includes: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine. Full submission requirements can be found at http://eastreet.eu/e4-invitation/
Check out some of the great work from previous Eastreet events at http://eastreet.eu and their Facebook page and Instagram.
