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The Gòtic becomes a laboratory for experimental photography
This week, the Gòtic has become a large visual laboratory with the seventh edition of the Experimental Photo Festival. Until Sunday, more than 300 international artists are taking part in a programme that combines exhibitions, workshops and talks at different venues in central Barcelona.
Centre Cívic Pati Llimona is once again the festival’s main meeting point. From there, a programme unfolds across other spaces in the neighbourhood, such as Espai Borsí and Lab Nau Especial, with 21 free-admission exhibitions.
The proposal moves away from conventional photography and focuses on manual processes, historical techniques and hybrid approaches. The aim is to explore what the physical image can still offer at a time dominated by screens, automation and artificial intelligence.
One of the most singular exhibitions is “Flying Roots”, by María Solaguren-Beascoa Negre. After twelve years photographing the bearded vulture in the Pyrenees, the artist presents work made using ecological trichrome cyanotype that reproduces changes in the colour of the plumage.
The festival also invites people to participate directly in creation. Its 69 workshops make it possible to experiment with photographic film, chemical processes, artisan printing and interventions on the medium, with activities aimed at both professionals and people encountering these techniques for the first time.
The programme is completed by around twenty talks about the future of photography. Themes include the coexistence of analogue and digital, authorship, the use of old processes and the impact of artificial intelligence on the way images are produced and consumed.
During these days, artists, students, local residents and visitors share spaces in one of Barcelona’s busiest neighbourhoods. The free exhibitions make it possible to join the festival without needing to follow the whole programme or reserve a place in the workshops.
The scene leaves tables full of negatives, dyed papers, modified cameras and conversations that continue through the streets of the Gòtic. Against the speed of the digital image, the festival champions a slower, material form of photography that is open to error.