IPF ART & PREMIER PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION

Sign-language interpretation, program guides, assistive listening devices, and other guest facilitation are all available upon request. Please contact us to inform us of your needs. 

IPF is a proud contributor to the contemporary art discourse.  The IPF ART & PREMIER PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION contextualizes the work of Canadian and international artists with a historical trajectory and presents a roster of artists whose works explore the centrality of peace as a cognitive and motivational subject through the use of local and universal symbols of peace within a variety of cultures and mediums including photography, concrete abstract painting, digital media, and sculpture. 

The artists whose works appear at the IPF ART & PREMIER PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION use their chosen medium to communicate their peaceful feelings, sensory impressions, spiritual dimensions, places, and spatial abstractions as part of value messages supporting peace. Thus, the IPF ART & PREMIER PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION explores the concept of peace through four main categories: Space and Form, Qualities, Emotions/States, and People/Social.

While peace is a multidimensional concept, it is primarily a social feeling and a value. The positive value of peace, of course, is pervasive in the IPF ART & PREMIER PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION, not least of which is the intended use of images to promote the cause of peace.  Peace may constitute a state or condition: formerly at war, we are in a state of peace. Peace may be also conceptualized as a sensory and spiritual manifestation, such as the use of light to indicate peace. Peace may also characterize an environment, i.e., a peaceful place. Finally, peace may be represented as a spatial abstraction, such as through the concepts of open, balance, and harmony.

PICTURING PEACE: LOCAL AND UNIVERSAL SYMBOLS will constitute the main theme of this year’s IPF’s PREMIER PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION and will include portfolio reviews with esteemed Reviewers, Photographer Presentations and Panel Discussions, and more. All different types of lens-based projects will be represented in the exhibition including documentary, fine art, black and white, reportage, and interdisciplinary projects.  This exhibition permits photo-based storytellers to bring their work to an international audience through the portal of industry leaders, editors, curators, and publishers.

Each Picturing Peace photograph begins with a word concept. The photographer expands on this concept so that a single image could represent a number of word concepts from one or all of the four categories: Space and Form, Qualities, Emotions/States, and People/Social. 

Images that embody “peace” or “peaceful” could be classified as the categories for emotions/state or people/social.  Photographs may use the word “peace” to describe peaceful places.

These photographs reveal the natural sculptures, layered formations, and the vibrant colors of nature, and, therefore, demonstrate how the photographer looks to nature for inspiration to create interesting images of peace.

The category of People/Social includes word concepts for peace, community, diverse, and cooperation.  The images reveal the photographer’s understanding of diversity beyond ethnic and cultural background.

The photographs in this group have a strong social documentary dimension. The images respond to the inevitable social conflicts in the world around us, forcing the viewer to consider the surrounding realities of life.

The IPF PICTURING PEACE initiative therefore pays attention to the image-language interplay and different forms of knowledge produced by different kinds of image makers – professional and non-professional photographers – and to the democratization of image making, frequently alleged to be a part of digitization.  As an epistemological medium, photography is especially suitable for the depiction of everyday peace.  This exhibition emphasizes that peace photography is derivative, illustrative and constitutive of peace.