Belfast Photo Festival, Northern Ireland’s leading visual arts festival, returns for its landmark 10th edition, animating Belfast with work by over 46 international artists throughout the month of June.

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This year’s festival explores the theme of Divergence and aims to delve deep into how contemporary photographers are interpreting the climate emergency, rapid digitalisation, and the ethical questions surrounding artificial intelligence with notable exhibitions by artists Richard Mosse, Matthias Oostrik, and many more.
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Presented in the deconsecrated Carlisle Memorial Church with the support of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Belfast Buildings Trust will be the island of Ireland premiere of Broken Spectre by award-winning Irish artist Richard Mosse. Taking the audience deep into the Brazilian Amazon, this immersive 74-minute audio-visual installation, billed as Mosse’s most ambitious project to date, is the result of three years of filming in the world’s largest rainforest.

Commenting on the exhibition, Richard said: “I hope Broken Spectre helps you feel your own complicity and I hope it gives you that uneasy sense of your own role in what’s happening to the world. I hope you go away from this film with a new understanding of your agency as a consumer, as a citizen, as an individual in society, because we often forget our power. I want you to go away feeling empowered. And that’s not necessarily a happy ending, but I want you to go away feeling like something needs to be done and that you will try and do something in your own way.”

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Riddel’s Warehouse, one of the most remarkable examples of 19th-century industrial Belfast, will host SMILE AI. by Dutch artist Matthias Oostrik. Presented at the festival with the support of the Creative Industries Fund NL, Kingdom of the Netherlands and Hearth Historic Buildings Trust, this dystopian art installation actively immerses the audience in a future where reality is refracted through the lens of AI's statistical interpretations.

Admission to Broken Spectre and SMILE .AI. is free of charge and accessible Tuesday to Friday 13:00–19:00, and Saturday to Sunday 11:00 - 19:00 throughout the festival. Matthias said: “I'm thrilled to introduce SMILE AI. at Belfast Photo Festival. This tech-art installation transforms audience portraits into flawless replicas, engaging viewers in an uncanny dialogue with AI. Get ready to see your likeness smiling back at you!”

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Among this year’s other highlights, Our Streets are Full of White Bears by Barbara Caillot and Aleksandra Karkowska will be exhibited on the lawn at Belfast City Hall from 10–30 June, with the support of the Polish Cultural Institute. These photos showcase the artists’ fascinating project of the legendary White Bear of Zakopane, exploring how thousands of pictures of people with white bears have become a symbol of Polish popular culture, and both an antidote and provocation during uncertain times over the past 100 years.

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Alongside the reveal of the 2024 programme, the festival has also announced artist Adam Rouhana as the recipient of its annual Spotlight Award for his project Before Freedom (2022-On-going). Adam is a Palestinian-American photographer who aims to reappropriate representations of Palestine from a Western description by presenting a contemporary view of Palestinian life.

Belfast Photo Festival Director Michael Weir commented: “We’re delighted to celebrate the 10th edition of Belfast Photo Festival by animating the city’s public spaces and its remarkably built heritage with world-class visual art. Over the last decade, the festival has really pushed the boundaries and innovated new ways for audiences to engage with photography. Our reach continues to grow and the appeal of this place as a cultural capital is truly global. International artists are keen to present their work on these shores and that’s reflected by the huge response to our Open Submission competition, which attracted entries from photographers around the world. A massive congratulations to this year’s award recipient, Adam Rouhana, whose work is among 10 diverse and gender-balanced projects selected by an expert panel of independent judges to be presented at this year’s festival.”

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This year’s judging panel included representatives from an array of internationally renowned museums, festivals and publications, such as TATE Modern in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, The New York Times, Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam, Magnum Photos in Paris, PHOTO 2024 International Festival of Photography in Australia, and Aperture Magazine in New York.

The festival, supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Belfast City Council, Arts & Business Northern Ireland and Alexander Boyd Displays, will also highlight over 30 partner exhibitions, talks, workshops and screenings of artists who are incorporating new mediums and technology into their work with further influences from contemporary, historical, documentary, archival, reportage and conceptual photography.

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Belfast Photo Festival runs from 06–30 June.

For more information, visit belfastphotofestival.com.