Valparaíso

The Valparaiso exhibition is a reciprocal invitation to the one received by Alexandre Christiaens from the FIFV (Festival Internacional de Fotografia en Valparaiso) in 2021. Rodrigo Gómez Rovira, director of the FIFV since its creation in 2010, and Alexandre Christiaens are the joint curators and have invited the photographers Mat Jacob (France) and Julia Toro (Chile), who have also exhibited at the FIFV, to Brussels.

Rodrigo Gómez Rovira promotes the festival as a convergence of experiences, where images and their uses are pretexts for life skills. Located in multiple spaces throughout the city, the FIFV is an event driven by a militant spirit, photography bearing witness to a world with its current transformations. We make our voice heard during the climate crisis, economic collapse, violence, inequality, hunger, drought, war and migration. We undergo rebirth in an increasingly globalised, increasingly changing and uncertain world. Perhaps linear logic weakens it, attempting to reduce everything to calculation and statistics. We are part of a diverse, uncertain and random interdependent network. These are the words of its director, Rodrigo Gómez Rovira. In 2021, after a virtual edition due to the health crisis, the theme of the FIFV was Un nuevo habitar.

In this edition, Alexandre Christiaens presented a portrait of the city during the pandemic, with a particular emphasis, characteristic of his work, on seascapes and the humanity it accumulates. Mat Jacob focussed on fishermen and small traders, among other things.
Julia Toro, a great name in Argentinian photography who took part in the FIFV in 2018, has been drawing up an intimate and philosophical portrait of the city and its port activity for many years, based mainly on the buses that cross it.

This exhibition is a collection of particles that not only build on one another but also provide a perspective and a commitment to collective memory on our era.

The books that the FIFV has dedicated to the three photographers will be presented during the exhibition at Contretype. 

Translation: Louise Jablonowska

Website: www.alexandrechristiaens.com - MatJacob - Julia Toro

© Alexandre Christiaens, série Valparaíso, 2021 / © Mat Jacob -Tendance Floue, série Valparaíso, 2020 / © Julia Toro, série Valparaíso, 2018

BOOKS