Louise Fedotov-Clements – founding partner of FORMAT – is soon to take up an exciting new position with Forestry England where she will lead a national and international contemporary arts and photography programme working at the forefront of the global climate crisis and exploring the vital intersection between art, science and biodiversity, including the development of Earth Photo.

But this is not goodbye as FORMAT is delighted to announce Louise’s appointment to the festival board as a new Patron of FORMAT.

Louise co-founded FORMAT in 2004 with the ambition to bring photography to the attention of a wider audience and over the last twenty years she has created, developed and led one of the most important biannual events in the international photography calendar.

From all over the UK and throughout the world, people have travelled to Derby to see the festival, meet friends and discuss the latest hot topic in photography as the East Midlands county town welcomed hundreds of thousands of people to FORMAT.

Louise has an uncanny way of anticipating future trends and throughout her tenure as the director of FORMAT she has recognised and promoted exciting new photography talents, presented challenging curatorial themes and supported photography internationally as an ambassador not just of UK photography but in support of photographers worldwide.

Here are just a few of the amazing things Louise has achieved during her tenure as the Director of FORMAT:
  Developed and delivered FORMAT’s Biennial and off year programmes, commissions, residencies, publications, and international tours including the UK’s biggest and internationally significant Portfolio Review, both off and online.

Curated the Discoveries Award at Les Rencontres Arles featuring Lisa Barnard and Zhao Renhui, 2015.

Invited critically acclaimed artists to present the lead festival exhibitions including Joel Meyerowitz, David Lynch, Mike Mandel, Bruce Gilden, Brian Griffin, Cindy Sherman, Lida Abdul and Juliana Huxtable.

Took FORMAT to China and formalised an official partnership with the Lishui international Photography Festival.

Guest curator of the Dong Gang international photography festival in South Korea, 2013.

Collaborated with Australian based photography organisation Hijacked to create the UK/Australia publication and exhibition tour in 2012.

Partnered the European photography foundation Procurate to provide emerging curators and photographers with mentoring and exhibition opportunities.

Developed partnerships across Africa including with Fotea in Uganda and the African Artist Foundation and Lagos Photography Festival in Nigeria.

Welcomed over 1.5 million people to engage with the FORMAT photography programmes since 2004.

Worked with 15,000+ artists over the last 20 years.

Launched FORMAT21:Control edition during the Covid19 pandemic on ground-breaking digital multiplayer platform in partnership with New Art City.

Leading the #massisolationFORMAT pandemic photography project 2020-2021, featuring 95+ counties and 80,000 images.

And brought back Elvis to entertain us on Festival opening nights.

Co-Patrons of FORMAT

Louise will join internationally acclaimed photographer Brian Griffin as the co-patron of FORMAT, who together will be directing the festival board and FORMAT team and continue inspiring us all with wonderful photography for future editions of the FORMAT International Photography Festival.

Keep an eye out for our open call announcement for our next edition – FORMAT23 – coming soon.