CPB Edition4

CPB EDITION4 - THEME

Photography, invented in the 1820s, has revolutionised, for better or for worse, how we record and remember things. 5 billion photos are taken everyday and more than 14 billion images are shared daily on social media. Photography has become a spontaneous act and a universal language now. In this age of excess image production, the question that begs to be asked and answered not just by photographers and artists, but by anyone, is - why do we photograph? Who are we photographing for? What is happening to photography, its users, makers, and viewers? What kind of work do we want our pictures to do?

“The job of the artist is not to provide answers, but to build the work and their practice to ask the right question.” - Sunil Gupta

The fourth edition of the Chennai Photo Biennale poses the question, ‘Why Photograph?’ and unfolds a set of inquiries into our relationship with photography. In this era of visual saturation, CPB4 brings together slower approaches to image making. Dayanita Singh has been sharing reflections on this very inquiry - ‘Why Photograph?’ via texts on instagram, and she asks - “While Photography becomes a people’s movement, a public act, and the language most people will speak, what then will a professional photographer be?”

The biennale will showcase diverse practices by artists who are reshaping dominant narratives by addressing gaps in representation, remixing colonial visual vocabularies with native avant garde aesthetics, by shifting the gaze from the lone photographer to forge an ethic of care and collective authorship.

“My own endeavour has involved learning to listen more deeply, to get myself out of the way in order to see more clearly, and collectively. While photography is a democratic medium in some respects, as almost everyone today has access to some form of camera, there is disproportionate power in terms of who gets to tell the story. My own small attempt has been to try and cede control of representation, and visualisation. Photography can help us not only broaden monolithic representations, but also to expand the closed and self-referential circles of power and visibility, who gets to be included, and who is excluded. Where and towards whom we direct our attention is an act of love, and belief.” - Gauri Gill

Photography makes history visible, but instead of accepting photography as truth, artists have been questioning the motives underlying the image’s production, thereby altering the very act of looking at photography itself.

“Photography as an apparatus of power cannot be reduced to any of its components, i.e., a camera, a photographer, a photographed environment, object, person or spectator. It designates an ensemble of diverse actions that contain the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of the photographic image. Like Citizenship, Photography is no one’s property.” - Ariella Azoulay

The biennale has also been consumed by a concurrent question - Who is the biennale for? CPB4 brings together curators, photographers, lens-based artists and audiences from around the world to experience exhibitions and programs set against the backdrop of our city. The Biennale invites the citizens of Chennai - families, commuters, teachers, students and artists to see their hometown anew.

This edition strives to foster a thoughtful, rigorous, and playful understanding of how photography is shaping and changing our lives. How does photography teach all of us to live now?

Why Photograph? is an attempt to bring to you the who (not just the who's who), the what, the where, and the why - and in the process reassess both the strengths and inadequacies of the medium. The texts and images that you will encounter in our exhibitions were not produced for a biennale or for a book. The biennale will not just unveil new photographers or celebrate the history of photographic practices, but explore diverse ways of seeing, thinking, feeling, and presenting.

“I believe our role is to see beyond the world’s blind spots - the invisible corners within oneself and the world around us.” - Jaisingh Nageswaran

We invite you, our audience, to reflect, rethink and respond.

INTERNATIONAL OPEN CALL - CPB EDITION4

DEADLINE EXTENDED - 20 OCT 2024

Submissions Open from 20th July 2024 onwards

Announcing our first-ever Open Call Exhibition as part of Chennai Photo Biennale Edition 4!

Open from 20 July 2024 to 20 Oct 2024, this edition will feature a constellation of exhibitions curated under the broad thematic umbrella of ‘Why Photograph?’ and will inquire into the changing relevance of photography in society.

APPLY HERE!

Submissions are open to photographers and artists of any age from anywhere in the world.

We invite photographic work from any niche to be exhibited.
Photographs from genres including nature, portraits, documentary, still life, and landscape photography, are welcome.
Photographic or lens-based images can include combinations with other art forms such as performance, painting, sculpture, music, literature and more.
We welcome images created with any type of camera - analogue or digital as well as images created via contact printing and experimental ‘cameraless’ processes.
Generative fill and fully generated images are prohibited from this Open Call
An international jury will shortlist the projects and images that will be exhibited at a public space in Chennai.

APPLY HERE!

We hope this gives you the freedom to submit your images without feeling constrained by a specific theme.

Public art has always been at the heart of the Chennai Photo Biennale. Presenting photographic art in parks, beaches and train stations, the Biennale aims to grow public awareness and engagement with photographic art. Selected projects from the International open Call will be exhibited at a public venue of CPB4.