dySTopian City
Fotoklub Split is organizing the Split Format Photography Festival again this year, and the theme of this year's festival is »diSTopia City«. The festival will open with an exhibition of the finalists of the photography contest »Framing the City«.
A city should be viewed as a chain that connects culture, architecture, people, their emotions, and temperament, thus offering a wealth of themes that photographers can explore and capture from unexpected angles and perspectives. All the dreams, hopes, plans, and optimism of people from decades and centuries ago are embedded in the city they created and brought to life. People have constantly framed and shaped it with their movements and actions in everyday life, making it one of the most recognizable and enduring symbols of local identity. Photography is one of the ways to delve into the depth of an urban center in attempts to deconstruct it as a physical location, historical site, or a place where demographic concentrations overlap.
The fact is that a city exists only in cohesion with the community that lives there, conducts daily activities, identifies with the city, and feels they have a right to public urban space. However, taking Split as an example, for the past decade, we have witnessed invasive tourism that has caused the city and its residents to atrophy during the summer months. The development of mass tourism negatively impacts tradition and culture, leading to authenticity issues, rising prices of goods and services in tourism, increasing infrastructure problems, and the city becoming a tourist backdrop for endless selfies and private parties. Is there another possibility, besides tourism, that will raise awareness and find a model for sustainable community and economic development?
Once an intriguing vision and interesting concept, today – the term smart city – is a trend sweeping the world. Cities are being implemented with new technologies, digitalization becomes an aspect of our lives, and the IT sector takes the lead in the transformation of cities. More intelligent solutions for energy, infrastructure, mobility, services, and security are sought and implemented. Do they serve people in a way that makes life easier, or only an elite group that sees technological development as an end in itself? Are we thinking about the consequences of digitalizing every aspect of our lives? Does technology work for us or control us?
If focused on the interplay between architecture, urban space, and people, photographers have the opportunity to showcase the uniqueness of the changes and challenges each city undergoes. Framing the City is a way through which collective memories and visions of the future are connected and co-constructed in a time-space dialogue. Does the city have a human face even when no one is in the frame? Can a photograph capture its essence for eternity?
Ivana Bošnjak, Art Historian
We invite you to apply your works to the competition and offer your own interpretation and view of the »diSTopia City«.
