Chennai Photo Biennale's first edition

First International Photo Festival in Chennai, India

By Chennai Photo Biennale

Chennai Photo Biennale 2016

Surrealistic by Nature (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

CPB Edition 1

The city’s first international photo festival was held from 26 February 2016 to 13 March 2016, with a series of events designed to serve as a window for photographic art in South India. 

Delhi Photo Festival (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Jointly organised by Goethe-Institut Chennai and Travelling Lens, CPB2016 brought together photographers from across the globe, paving the way for a healthy interaction and sharing of ideas to give rise to a strong photographic community in south India.     

Delhi Photo Festival (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Chennai's first International Photo Festival

The event spanned two weeks comprising several print exhibitions, workshops, artist talks, symposiums and curated projections - 120 participating artists and 60 exhibitions, a staggering number.

Urban Water (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Exhibition: Urban Water

15 photographers from all over India gathered to document the issues surrounding water in Chennai. They worked under the tutelage of celebrated photographers Munem Wasif (Bangladesh), Ravi Agarwal (India) and Andreas Deffner (Germany).

Urban Water (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

The workshop was held at the Goethe-Institut (Chennai) in January and was possible due to the generous sponsorship of PhotoConcierge. 

Urban Water (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Participating Artists

Anshika Varma | India
Arun Vijai Mathavan | India
Balaji Maheshwar | India
Dhruv Dhakan | India
Gayatri Ganju | India
Jordi Pizarro | Italy

Urban Water (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Participating Artists


Kannagi Khanna | India 
Karen Dias | India
Nikhil Roshan | India
Ronny Sen | India 
Sathish Kumar | India

Urban Water (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Participating Artists

Sebastian Forkarth | Germany
Swastik Pal | India
Zishaan Akbar Latif | India

Surrealistic by Nature (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Exhibition: Surrealistic By Nature

Curated by Chennai-based French photographer Yannick Cormier, the exhibition explored the blurring of reality and poetry through the eyes of internationally renowned photographers. The show was installed in various parts of the Nageshwara Rao park landscape. 

Surrealistic by Nature (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Exhibiting Artists

Aitor Lara | Spain
Cristina De Middel | Spain
Denis Dailleux | France
Suresh Punjabi | India
Karolin Klueppel | Germany
Piotr Zbierski | Poland
Zhang Xiao | China

Surrealistic by Nature (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

“Surrealistic by Nature” evokes the spiritual and the material, fiction and reality, tradition and modernity.

These photos are living images that seven photographers have discovered in travel, in social rituals, in religious ceremonies, in cultural fantasies, in popular novels, in personal dreams and more generally in all the games, sacred or ordinary, that distorts identity and appearance.

Surrealistic by Nature (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

The intention of this exhibition was to show, through the work of these photographers, a kind of resistance of cultural identity by traditional societies or smaller communities who have not as yet been completely anaesthetised by the modern consumerist world.

Surrealistic by Nature (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

It was an attempt to glimpse at the mythical attitudes of these groups. But more than myths, these images showed people playing with symbols of a culture that is at ease with its traditions and hence can be self-mocking. Read more

Delhi Photo Festival (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Exhibition: Delhi Photo Festival

A massive selection from the Delhi Photo Festival was also a part of the 2016 Biennale. The exhibition included works of legendary Indian photographers Kishor Parekh and Raghu Rai, and international talents like Sarker Protick from Bangladesh and Olivier Culmann from France.

Delhi Photo Festival (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Exhibiting Artists and their works

Angelica Dass | Brazil- Spain | Humane Arjen Schmitz | Netherlands | The World around Us 
Arturo Betancourt | Mexico | Perfect Citizen 
Arun Vijai Matheran | India | Urban Montains 
Danila Tkachenko | Russia | Restricted Areas 
Daniella Zalcman | USA | Sunday Soldiers
Emmanuele Satolli | Italy | In the bag for north
Felix von der Osten | Germany | The Buffalo that could not dream

Delhi Photo Festival (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Jeremie Lenoir | France | Borders 
Karloin Klüppel | Germany | Mädchenland (Kingdom of Girls) 
Kasper Loftgaard | Denmark | Cowboy Life 
Klaus Pichler | Austria | Just the two of us 
Kishor Parekh | India | Bangladesh
Marina Paulenka | Croatia | The Other Home
Marylise Vigneau | France | Phnom Penh of the Future

Delhi Photo Festival (2016) by Chennai Photo BiennaleChennai Photo Biennale

Michael Dorst-Hansen | Denmark | Rohingya 
Olivier Culmann | France | The Others Raghu Rai | India | The Album 
Roger Anis | Egypt | Closets full of dreams 
Sarker Protick | Bangladesh | Love Me or Kill me 
Sebastian Forkarth | Germany | Safe Haven 
Soham Gupta | India | Angst
Verena Andrea Prenner | Austria | Contained

CPB2016 Programs

In addition to the public exhibitions, various shows happened across the city’s premium art galleries such as Apparao, Art Houz, Focus, Gallery Veda OMR, Lakshana and Forum further expanding the reach of photography to art lovers. Artist Talks, Symposium, Portfolio Reviews and Photowalks were conducted to bring together the large community of photographers and photography lovers under one roof.

Credits: Story

To know more about the 2016 Biennale, visit Chennai Photo Biennale website.

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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