KAUNAS PHOTO 2020: The Winners announced!

The main prize of the 17th KAUNAS PHOTO festival's competition goes to the Italian duo for their work "Cronostasi" on the changed notion of time during quarantine.

The exhibition opening marathon of the 17th KAUNAS PHOTO festival rippled across the city of Kaunas and culminated with the announcement of the winners of the KAUNAS PHOTO STAR 2020 Award. Out of ten photographic series that made to the finals, Cronostasi, created by the Italian duo of artists Chiara Panariti and Gianfranco Ferraro, was unambiguously chosen as the winner by both the international jury panel of photography experts and the joint commission of the festival KAUNAS PHOTO and Kaunas Photography Gallery. The winners received the main prize of the competition KAUNAS PHOTO STAR 2020 - a personal exhibition at Kaunas Photography Gallery during the festival KAUNAS PHOTO and a 2500 EUR monetary prize. The open competition KAUNAS PHOTO STAR has been organized since 2010 by the festival KAUNAS PHOTO aiming to honor the future stars of photography.

In a series of fifty photographs, Chiara Panariti and Gianfranco Ferraro captured the life in Milan during the COVID-19 quarantine. The artists, who captured the everyday moments of the people of Milan in their windows and balconies, describe their project Cronostasi as an intimate and universal search for a renewed perception of time. By observing and looking at people in photos, we were able to compare our own and others' time, which has become a unit of measurement of what has happened and is still happening in the world, the authors relate their experience.

Cronostasi © Chiara Panariti & Gianfranco Ferraro

The artists, who were unable to participate in the exhibition opening in Lithuania due to the ongoing pandemic, presented their work to the audience at Kaunas Photography Gallery in a pre-recorded video. Stefano M. Lanza, an associate professor at Vytautas Magnus University, born and raised in Milan and living in Kaunas for many years, helped to take a closer look at the work Cronostasi. He described the series as a right approach to a wrong situation. It is like sharing the same destiny, the same fate, and how people react to such a complex and unexpected situation, Stefano M. Lanza shared his thoughts as he looked at the photos.

Cronostasi © Chiara Panariti & Gianfranco Ferraro

10 finalists from 8 countries of the world were running for the grand prize of the KAUNAS PHOTO STAR competition: Dillon Marsh (South Africa) Diamonds Aren't Forever, Lina Margaitytė & Marius Krivičius (Lithuania) Temporarily Open, Guillem Vidal (Spain) Forgotten playground, Mikhail Lebedev (Russia) Restaurateurs by chance, Bruno Alencastro (Brazil) obs-cu-ra, Dovilė Dagienė (Lithuania) Plant Memory / Wooden Synagogues, Hannes Jung (Germany) The Wolf Is Present, Arne Piepke (Germany) Anecdotes from an unfamiliar Land, Michał Adamski (Poland) I dyed my hair again, Chiara Panariti & Gianfranco Ferraro (Italy) Cronostasi. The photographers followed the exhibition opening marathon and the announcement of the winner of KAUNAS PHOTO STAR Award virtually - watching the live streaming videos, which can be viewed by everyone interested the official Facebook page of the festival KAUNAS PHOTO.

Cronostasi © Chiara Panariti & Gianfranco Ferraro

The works of all finalists of the 17th KAUNAS PHOTO festival's competition are displayed at four outdoor venues of Kaunas: Chechnya Square, Kalniečiai Park, the square next to State Tax Inspectorate in Žemieji Šančiai and at the foot of Žaliakalnis funicular; and at six indoor venues: Kaunas Photography Gallery, Kaunas City Museum Folk Music Branch, Kaunas Public Library of Vincas Kudirka - Department of Youth, Art and Music, Kaunas Cultural Centre of Various Nations, Maironis Lithuanian Literature Museum, VMU Multifunctional Center for Studies and Research. The program of the festival can be found here. Further news and updates on the festival program will be announced.

KAUNAS PHOTO is the longest-running annual photographic festival in Lithuania and the Baltic States. Founded by Mindaugas Kavaliauskas in 2004, it's been organized by the NGO Šviesos raštas. KAUNAS PHOTO is a member of the Festival of Light organization. The festival KAUNAS PHOTO is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture as one of the strategic international art events in Lithuania.

Sponsors: Kaunas city municipality, EPSON
Informational sponsor: LRT
Partners: Kaunas Photography Gallery, Kaunas City Museum, Kaunas Municipal Vincas Kudirka Public Library, Kaunas Cultural Centre of Various Nations, Maironis Lithuanian Literature Museum, Vytautas Magnus University.
Sponsor of the outdoor exhibitions: SP Kauno želdiniai

Virginia Hanusik: Into the Quiet and the Light

By Virginia Hanusik

Publisher : Columbia Books on Architecture and the City

2024 | 184 pages

In South Louisiana, where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico, water―and the history of controlling it―is omnipresent. Into the Quiet and the Light: Water, Life, and Land Loss in South Louisiana glimpses the vulnerabilities and possibilities of living on the water during an ongoing climate catastrophe and the fallout of the fossil fuel industry―past, present, and future. The book sustains our physical, mental, and emotional connections to these landscapes through a collection of photographs by Virginia Hanusik. Framing the architecture and infrastructure of South Louisiana with both distance and intimacy, introspection and expansiveness, this work engages new memories, microhistories, anecdotes, and insights from scholars, artists, activists, and practitioners working in the region. Unfolding alongside and in dialogue with Hanusik’s photographs, these reflections soberly and hopefully populate images of South Louisiana’s built and natural environments, opening up multiple pathways that defy singularity and complicate the disaster-oriented imagery often associated with the region and its people. In staging these meditations on water, life, and land loss, this book invites readers to join both Hanusik and the contributors in reading multiplicity into South Louisiana’s water-ruled landscapes.

With texts from Richie Blink, Imani Jacqueline Brown, Jessica Dandridge, Rebecca Elliott, Michael Esealuka, T. Mayheart Dardar, Billy Fleming, Andy Horowitz, Arthur Johnson, Louis Michot, Nini Nguyen, Kate Orff, Jessi Parfait, Amy Stelly, Jonathan Tate, Aaron Turner, and John Verdin.

Rawsht Twana: Twana’s Box

By Rawsht Twana

Publisher : Fraglich Publishing

2024 | 252 pages

Twana’s Box' can be described in many ways: a journey through a photographer’s rare archive, documenting the Kurdistan region of Iraq from 1974–1992; a son’s quest to find his lost father, who was murdered by a military regime; a young man’s way to piece together the fragments of a scattered family in a scattered culture; the becoming of a photographer who, through the stories of others, starts to understand his own identity in times of war. 'Twana’s Box' is not only the photo book that holds a selection of Twana Abdullah’s archive; it is a unique insight into a time and place in a region that has since completely transformed. Rawsht has spent years piecing together his father’s negatives and stories. His archival work inspired him to become a photographer himself, working for Metrography – the first independent Iraqi photo agency – before immigrating to Europe. ills colour & bw, 21 x 27 cm, hb, Kurdish/Arabic/English

Akinbode Akinbiyi: Being, Seeing, Wandering

By Akinbode Akinbiyi

Publisher : Spector Books

2024 | 252 pages

Taken across Europe and Africa, Akinbiyi’s images of everyday city life muse on the sociopolitical labyrinths of urban society

Whether in Bamako, Berlin, London, Lagos or Durban, British photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi (born 1946) creates black-and-white street scenes that function as visual metaphors, ruminating on cultural change, social exclusion and colonialism’s effect on urban planning.

Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm

By Grace Wales Bonner

Publisher : The Museum of Modern Art, New York

2024 | 184 pages

A deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression, curated by the acclaimed London-based designer
This volume, Grace Wales Bonner: Dream in the Rhythm―Visions of Sound and Spirit in the MoMA Collection, is an artist’s book created by the acclaimed London-based designer Grace Wales Bonner as “an archive of soulful expression.” Through an extraordinary selection of nearly 80 works from The Museum of Modern Art’s collection and archives, this unique volume draws multisensory connections between pictures and poems, music and performance, hearing and touch, gestures and vibrations, and bodies in motion. Photographs, scores and films by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Roy DeCarava, Lee Friedlander, David Hammons, Glenn Ligon, Steve McQueen, Lorna Simpson and Ming Smith, among others, are juxtaposed with signal texts by Black authors spanning the past century, including Amiri Baraka, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, June Jordan, Robin Coste Lewis, Ishmael Reed, Greg Tate, Jean Toomer, Quincy Troupe and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Artist’s Choice: Grace Wales Bonner―Spirit Movers, this resplendent publication is a deeply personal meditation on and around modern Black expression that echoes Wales Bonner’s own vibrant, virtuosic designs.

KAUNAS PHOTO 2020: The Winners announced!

The main prize of the 17th KAUNAS PHOTO festival's competition goes to the Italian duo for their work "Cronostasi" on the changed notion of time during quarantine.

Kaunas Photo Festival

Selected Books