Auckland Festival of Photography 15th Anniversary Edition

Sixty venues around Auckland

31 May - 22 June 2018

The Auckland Festival of Photography celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, a remarkable achievement in an increasingly challenging environment for the arts and cultural sector.

This year the festival theme is "Control" and features twelve Control-themed exhibitions, eighteen ‘Core’ exhibitions and seventeen ‘Talking Culture’ events - including presentations by award-winning US photojournalist Maggie Steber, Argentinian artist Alejandro Chaskielberg and leading German political photographer Herlinde Koelbl. There are also forty-seven ‘Satellite’ exhibitions across the region – including a three-year study of the Waterview Tunnel project and solo and group shows.

Most of 2018’s Control-themed exhibitions are based at the AFP hub, Silo Park in Wynyard Quarter. Many prompt reflections on how, as Control curator Gwen Lee describes it, “the rampant presence of photography” has invaded private and public realms. “Surveillance, aided by digitalization and satellites, propels questions about power underlying all forms of control, often belying the fact that control starts with one in power, administrating action on others.”

The popular Nikon Auckland Photo Day returns on 9 June. The 24-hour competition invites people to capture still or moving images of the Auckland region on one day. An outdoor exhibition at Queens Wharf and a digital Photo Map project will help share the the archive of more than 10,000 images entered since the annual competition began in 2004.

More information can be seen on the festival website, printed programmes are now available from selected venues around Auckland, and for the second year running, the programme will be available as a free phone app, courtesy of sponsors Baker Douglas (from 30 May).