The Eye: FORMAT19 Diary

The Eye, aka WM Hunt has reported on his visit to FORMAT19 for L’Oeil de la Photographie. Insightful, funny and appreciative the Eye offers us his view FORMAT19.

The Eye enjoys this trip from the US because FORMAT19 is a world class festival. Also the Eye’s ancestral roots are in Derbyshire.  Perhaps some distant cousin will present him or herself.

It does rain, and it can be very cold, but the lousy weather was at odds with the very full pleasures of FORMAT19.

One of the things that this particular Format did very well was to showcase photographers that may not have extensive exhibition history.   The Eye was impressed that most of the exhibitors were drawn from an enormous Open Call. 

At FORMAT19 artists not only have shows and space in the catalogue but there is substantial related press (The Royal Photographic Society Magazine, in particular) as well as inclusion in the international portfolio reviews.  This gave visitors repeated opportunities to encounter new work.

The festival title was “Forever//Now”.  Story telling was at the heart of things and the various curators like Louise Fedotov-Clements, founder and Artistic Director of the FORMAT biennial, Tim Clark of 1000 Words, and Peter Bonnell, QUAD Senior Curator, to name a few did a swell job.

You can read the full diary here.