Prompted by the sudden junctures the arts and liberal societies found themselves at in 2020, Futures Photography presents RESET: Questioning the Image, the Market and the Role of Representation. Developed with a critical attitude, it necessarily pushes past the dimensions of a yearly round-up or catalogue – to engage in debate on our splintered representations of reality and their revealing architectures of influence.
The exponential rise of non-human photography; our ambivalent – yet subversive – relationship with memes, emojis and digital communication at large; and how the forces of representation continue to shape our racial condition are just some of the topics explored by a host of cross-disciplinary contributors. Including Mariama Attah, Joanna Zylinska, Geert Lovink, Sandrine Colard, Olav Velthuis, Lewis Bush, Rafal Milach, Ola Lanko, Salvatore Vitale and more.
The structure of RESET – in a play on the world turned upside-down – is developed in two parts that must be flipped to read. One side takes a step towards analysing how photography plays into our collective situation; housing essays, visual interventions and discussions that took place during Futures Digital Festival 2020. While the reverse proudly features the work of 57 image-based artists and collectives, annually nominated by Futures’ network of institutions across Europe for their exceptional practice and the urgent stories they tell.
