MOSCOW.- The second Moscow emerging photography and photobook festival PHOTOBOOKFEST kicks off April 19 and will be open until June 17 2018. While the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography will remain the main venue for the event, this year’s visitors also are in for a varied programme in museums, libraries, educational and creative spaces in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and other Russian cities.

PHOTOBOOKFEST will begin accepting applications for Photobook Dummy Contest as soon as January 15. The contest is open to photographers and artists from Russia, CIS countries, Ukraine and Georgia. The deadline for submission of applications is early May. Detailed information about conditions and deadlines for application will be soon available on the website of the festival.

The 2017 contest winner was a project by a photographer Ikuru Kuwajima, “I, Oblomov”. The book was selected by a competent international jury comprising such experts as Lesley A.Martin (USA), creative director at Aperture, Dieter Neubert (Germany), director of Fotobookfestival Kassel, Yevgeny Brezner, an art expert and curator of the PhotoVisa festival and others. Ikuru Kuwajima’s solo exhibition “I, Oblomov” will be held within the main exhibition programme of the festival.

PHOTOBOOKFEST 2018 is radically pushing at its boundaries in the coming season. April to June the Center for Photography and partnering venues will host some large-scale exhibitions of emerging global photography as well as educational and discussions events, series of portfolio reviews, an independent publishers and photographers market and a special programme for children. Just like in the previous season, photobook exhibitions will have a special place in the programme.

“The mission of Photobookfest 2018 is to look at photography in the context of modern media, to decide what it is capable of and how it can reach the audience, including the potential of the modern photobook to exist as an independent art form”, - comments Anna Shpakova, director of the PHOTOBOOKFEST festival. “Today’s photobook is a dynamically developing format which is constantly following changes in technology, materials, design and typography and, most importantly, discovers new ways of turning an image into an impressive and dramatic event”.