LUXEMBOURG.-Within the scope of Luxembourg, capital of culture 2007 with the theme "Luxembourg and la Grande Région" and under the patronage of Ms Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for information society and media, the Galerie Clairefontaine presents the 3rd edition of the Luxembourg Photo Festival. The 3rd edition of the festival concentrates entirely on Focus Periphery - A European Cross-Country Project.

Internationally renowned photographers, photo-artists and lecturers highlight and discuss, from 18 to 23 June 2007, in workshops, lectures and exhibitions, the significance of the peripheries of urban centres. This year, for the first time, European colleges will take part in the Photomeetings Luxembourg. All events are aimed equally at professional photographers, photography specialists, students, as well as at interested amateurs and photography lovers.

Focus: Periphery - A European Cross-Country Project - The new Europe is being decided in the peripheries. The peripheries of the cities are not any longer the mere appendages of the centres, on the contrary. Already with the punk of the late 1970s (Sound of the Suburbs), the transformation of London's East End in the 1990s from the NoGo area to the hippest place in the urban space of the metropolis, but also with the unrest in the Parisian satellite towns became obvious, what the art theoretician Prof. Dr. Michael Glasmeier already wrote in the early nineties: "Although the 'dormitory town' with its sad block of flats really looks tired, the denomination is not suitable any longer. The periphery is awake. It is the centre of the unsolved social problems and postponed political decisions."

Migrants from all over the world arrive in the peripheries, here the cultures clash together. There is no doubt: the suitability of the modern multi-cultural and multi-media society is tested in the peripheries of the cities. As a cultural melting-pot and social groupings, the periphery also provides an invisible impetus.

A country like Luxembourg, in particular, is largely dependent on its peripheries. For its role as a "leader" of la Grande Région, the country has obtained from its clever and far-sighted "niche politics" of the financial centre, Luxembourg the country has won over a great part of the educated "workforce" from the periphery.

In the framework of Photomeetings Luxembourg 2007, highly renowned international photographers, photo-artists and topic specialists, will work on the periphery as a social and political focus and as an impetus.

The following colleges participate to the project: the London College of Communication/England, the Hochschule für Künste Bremen/Germany, the Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg II, the Akademie Minerva, Groningen/The Netherlands, and students from Luxembourg.