FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

an international festival around the world

FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

medzinárodný festival fotografie okolo celého sveta 
Moscow, Paris, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Odense, Madrid, Barcelona, Bratislava, Braga, Santa Cruz de Tenerife (dva festivaly/two festivals), Herten, Torino, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Xalpa, Clarines, Curitiba, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Montreal, Houston(USA) Moscow, Paris, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Odense, Madrid, Barcelona, Bratislava, Braga, Santa Cruz de Tenerife (dva festivaly/two festivals), Herten, Torino, Mexico City, Guadalajara, Xalpa, Clarines, Curitiba, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Montreal, Houston(USA)
The year 2000 initiates the first international collaboration among 22 of the world’s major photography festivals from cities of 16 countries. The Festival of Light creates a pathway of photography around the world. A year-long program of monthly events celebrating the diversity and richness of art and society across the world.

V roku 2000 sa po prvý raz spojilo vo vzájomnej medzinárodnej spolupráci 22 najdôležitejších svetových festivalov fotografie z miest 16 krajín. Prostredníctvom Festivalu svetla sa môžete vydať na cestu okolo sveta a navštíviť v každom mesiaci fotografické podujatia, ktoré oslavujú rôznorodosť a bohatstvo výtvarnej a spoločenskej kultúry našej zeme.
The festival came into being mostly by the initiative of Fred Baldwin and Wendy Watris and in collaboration with the other international festivals of photography. Festival sa uskutočnil najmä z iniciatívy Freda Baldwina a Wendy Watrisa v spolupráci s ostatnými medzinárodnými festivalmi fotografie.
The festivals are sponsoring a new Web site www.festivaloflight.org   and www.festivaloflight.net   – with information on photography programs and festivals around the world from 2000-2001 Na novej spoločnej webovej stránke – www.festivaloflight.org a www.festivaloflight.net – nájdete aktuálne informácie o fotografických  podujatiach a festivaloch na celom svete v rokoch 2000-2001.
 

BRATISLAVA / THE CHOICE OF

Dušan Dušek, sreen-writer, peot, writer

 Photography is meant to be looked at. What then do we see in it? A small wonder on a grand scale, or a great wonder in a miniature? Miro Švolík animates what is lifeless: bitumen yields a female body. Both are creators – the photographer and his photograph. What then do we see? A body, a navel, two navels, or belly buttons. What sort of navels – the first one, the true one, the one placed higher in the picture – and the other, less real, but of far more import -standing lower in the picture. Where is the belly – button there? Right in front of our eyes. The most important navel in the world: the belly button of the world. The middle. The beginning. And yet it is a miniature tree: a palm with the trunk between the legs, four leaves of a crown, four springs of the pudenda. We are close, quite close to life’s heart. The heart is not in the photograph. And yet, erotic is the heart of life. For that tiny tree will bloom and blossom. In another of Miro Švolík’s pictures, it will turn into the crown of the family. The father will be the bee, mum will yield the harvest, the children will be the apples. All this may be inferred from the photograph  which we are gazing at, into which we suddenly enter-thanks to its author. We are close to the incipient breath of life. Since the photograph is to be looked at, humor an joy enter our gaze – and with them, a little tenderness which is the name of man close to us.

 

Miro ŠvolíkAnd
Finally my Wife and I Had, 1986

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1960: Born in Zlaté Moravce / 1975-1979: Studied at the school of Applied Arts in Bratislava / 1987: Graduated from the Department of Photography of the Film and Television Faculty Academy of Performing Arts AMU / 1989: Main Award of the Photographic Triennial in Esslingen (Germany) / 1990: Award for Young Photographer of the International Center of Photography in New York / In the nineties he held one-person exhibitions in Slovakia, Belgium, Spain, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Canada, Poland, USA, Denmark, Hungary and Great Britain, Lives and works in Prague.