6th consecutive year
Under the patronage of H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic, Ms Katerina Sakellaropoulou.
Athens Photo World, the yearly photojournalism festival, returns in the cultural scene of the city for its sixth edition.
Athens Photo World 2024 will present two outdoors exhibitions, the contest for the Athens Photo World Award and a two-day event with Digital Projections showcasing the work of contemporary international photojournalism.
Details for all exhibitions and events will be announced weekly.
Athens Photo World 2024 is made possible with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and the valuable support of DEI (PPC/Public Power Corporation), the City of Athens through Culture, Sports and Youth Organisation (OPANA) and the National Garden, Megaron the Athens Concert Hall and Associated Press news agency.
Outdoor exhibition on the railings of Megaron, the Athens Concert Hall.
Photographers: Sakis Gioumpasis, Penelope Thomaidi, Dimitris Tosidis and George Tsafos
Duration: July 5th – September 15th
International press agency Associated Press’ photographers captured some of the most iconic moments during the last three Olympiads: London 2012, Rio de Janeiro 2016 and Tokyo 2021 (2020).
The exhibition is organized by Athens Photo World and Culture, Sports and Youth Organisation of the City of Athens (OPANDA), in collaboration with the National Garden.
Duration: July 19th – September 1st
Our established contest will run its sixth year with free submission
This year the contest and the Award are made possible with the valuable support of DEI (PPC/Public Power Corporation)
Details will be announced soon.
auditorium of Technopolis City of Athens. Athens Photo World, with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and supported also by DEI (Public Power Corporation) presents a two days event dedicated to showcasing selected projects of Greek and international photojournalists.
18 and 19 January weekend
Free entrance
The foundation of Athens Photo World was based on the desire to showcase contemporary photojournalism through the work of photographers who work tirelessly around the world to give the public a picture of events and history as it is being written.
The aim was to educate the general public about the work of photojournalists, their value and their priceless contribution to the transmission of news to and from the world.
A key point in this effort was to showcase not just the image, but the photographers themselves, the names and faces behind the images, behind the photojournalism that floods the media, both print and electronic, on a daily basis.
Athens Photo World, as an initiative and a four-year overall action, found a warm response from Greek professionals, starting with the encouragement and support of the late Yannis Behrakis. The photographers who have entrusted their work to APW over the years are active professionals with experience and a wealth of work in Greece and/or abroad:
Alexandros Avramidis, Vasilis Ververidis, Petros Giannakouris, Achilleas Zavallis, Angelos Zymaras, Niko J. Kallianiotis, Michalis Karayiannis, Marialena Karatza, Yorgos Karahalis, Alexandros Katsis, Stavros Kesedakis, Maro Kouri, Kostas Koutsaftikis, Alkis Konstantinidis, Kostas [Vasilis] Kosteres, Yannis Liakos, Thanasis Liapis, Elias Markou, Yorgos Matthaios, Dimitris Melenikiotis, Nikos Menoudarakos, Stelios Misinas, Dimitris Michalakis, Giorgos Moutafis, Spyros Bakalis, Socrates Baltagiannis, Costas Baltas, Aggelos Barai, Vangelis Bougiotis, Antonis Nikolopoulos, Kostis Ntantamis, Anna Pantelia, Simela Pantzartzi, Myrto Papadopoulos, Lefteris Partsalis, Vladimir Rys, Orestis Seferoglou, Dimitris Sideridis, Byron Smith, Giannis Spyrounis, Menelaos Sykovelis, Konstantinos Tsakalidis, Giannis Farmakidis, Nikos Chalkiopoulos, Angelos Christofilopoulos, Loukas Hapsis, Thomas Chrysochoidis, and the agencies InTimeNews and Sports, and Eurokinissi.
With the same aim of showcasing contemporary photojournalism and promoting it to the Greek public, important collaborations have been established with major international news and photography institutions, who have entrusted Athens Photo World with the presentation of the work of the photographers they represent:
At the same time, with the introduction of the two major cash prizes of Athens Photo World, the “Yannis Behrakis” International Award and the Athens Photo World Award for photographers working in Greece and/or Cyprus (regardless of nationality), not only did eight photographers receive substantial support to continue their work (Dar Yasin, Fabio Bucciarelli, Darrin Zammit Lupi, Evgeniy Malolietka, Yiannis Antonopoulos, Dimitris Michalakis, Dimitris Tosidis and Michalis Patsouras), but the work of photographers who have been finalists in the two contests each year was also spotlighted (Thodoris Nikolaou, Chery Dieu Nalio, Nariman Ayman El-Mofty, Emilio Morenatti, Jérémy Lempin, Gabriele Galimberti, Khalil Hamra, Mahé Elipe, Danish Siddiqui, Antonios Pasvantis, Byron Smith, Angelos Tzortzinis, Petros Gianakouris and Konstantinos Tsakalidis).
Although these photographers are already recognised for their work, their selection by the judges of the respective juries was a further step in promoting both their work and the social issues it addresses.
In particular, the two Athens Photo World Awards were a beacon of optimism in 2020, the most difficult year of the COVID-19 pandemic, because the contests gave the organisation the opportunity to remain active (albeit with limited action) and the photographers, who worked tirelessly with effort and risk, to promote their work and the social impact of the new reality the planet was experiencing.
Athens Photo World
In addition to its original purpose of promoting the work of photographers and photojournalists, the second and equally important objective of Athens Photo World was to communicate with the public, to expose the wider public to contemporary photojournalism and to engage with the work and the creators themselves. We believe that the Athens Photo World project has been a complete success in this respect as:
Both the photographers and the institutions that have supported these exhibitions (public and private) are left with the best impressions of the response and recognition they have received from a wider and more diverse audience that would not be so easily involved in a process of indoor exhibitions in exclusively cultural venues, either because of a lack of interest or (most importantly) a lack of time.
This is an extremely important asset for the organisation, not only because it allows the public to meet and interact directly with the photographers, but also because it differentiates the organisation from most of the photographic events that take place in the country. Unfortunately, the radical restructuring of all cultural activities imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to postpone many planned events to the following years, but we keep the positive impressions as a basis for investing in the future.
By organising the teenage photographers’ workshop and the corresponding final exhibition since 2019, we have seen an active interest from many teenagers who have shown eagerness and often excellent photographic work. This event was only interrupted in 2020, but continued successfully in 2021 and 2022, attracting external sponsorship and increasing visibility as three different municipalities and the SNFCC itself became involved and hosted the event in its Park Perimeter. At the same time, this exhibition was the occasion for the SNFCC, in collaboration with the members and partners of the APW, to organise a series of four workshops for young people on four different photographic directions, all of which were very well received and attended.
This showcases both the work of the photographer and the work of the organisation itself. In the same context, the MSF approached Athens Photo World to co-organise (December 2021, in collaboration with the SNFCC) the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the organisation’s activity in Greece and the 50th anniversary of its international activity, while at the same time the members of Athens Photo World offered their organisational and curatorial support to the exhibition of the MSF’s photographic work on the railings of the Megaron Athens Concert Hall.
All in all, during its four years of activity, Athens Photo World has always had as one of its priorities the widest possible involvement of the public -citizens who are not part of the world of photography and journalism- with contemporary photojournalism, its creators and the recognition of its crucial importance in the knowledge and perception of the reality of our world.
Athens Photo World
Starting in 2019 with the mediation of the late Yannis Behrakis, the birth of Athens Photo World, thanks to the donation of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, gave the organisation the opportunity to carry out a series of actions that sealed its immediate recognition. The financial and institutional support of the SNF has been crucial in enabling the organisation to carry out all the events planned and to attract the interest of major institutions in the development of these events.
At the same time, the collaboration with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center has been at the heart of all major exhibitions and many events of Athens Photo World and its ever-growing recognition. The public’s love for the SNFCC, its extended opening hours and its visitor-friendly spaces played a key role in this. However, the lion’s share of the success of this collaboration belongs to the IMMENSE, valuable and irreplaceable support that Athens Photo World received from the staff of the SNFCC, the programming team and all the contributors, without exception, from all positions, who in all circumstances not only supported the organisation, but also offered valuable know-how and sometimes personal diligence and care for the best possible result each time.
In addition to the SNF and the SNFCC, Athens Photo World has collaborated with a number of institutions that have supported its actions and contributed to its ever-increasing visibility and impact:
Starting with the support of Athens Culture Net (2019), we established a good relationship with the Municipality of Athens and the Culture, Sports & Youth Organisation of the City of Athens (OPANDA), which continues today, despite the succession of municipal authorities. The events of Athens Photo World, especially the outdoor exhibition on the railings of the National Garden, is a chapter of APW in which both the Municipality of Athens and the National Garden Administration have invested. The “Nature and Environment” exhibition that we presented on the railings of the National Garden in 2022 was one of the choices of the Mayor of Athens for the tour of the Mayor of Smyrna during his visit in June 2022. It seems that the Municipality of Athens wishes to continue this event in the coming years.
In the same context, we have established a good collaboration with the “Melina” Cultural Centre, which for two years (2021 and 2022) hosted the exhibition of the award-winning photographers of the Athens Photo World contests of the previous years (2020 and 2021). Despite the good cooperation and the very good location in the city, the very limited opening hours have a negative effect on the attendance of these exhibitions.
The collaboration with the Megaron Athens Concert Hall, which hosted the outdoor exhibitions dedicated to landscapes and parts of Greece for two years and throughout the summer, proved to be excellent and fruitful. It seems that the Megaron Athens Concert Hall wishes to continue this event in the coming years.
Equally important was the collaboration with Athens International Airport “Eleftherios Venizelos”, which hosted the exhibition “Greece” for eight months (January-August 2022), giving thousands of visitors from all over the world the opportunity to get a first impression of the work of Greek photographers and Athens Photo World, through a series of photographs fitting the journey and the beauty of the country.
The collaboration with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the University of West Attica proved to be useful on a practical level (attracting volunteers, guiding students to the exhibitions), but also important in ensuring support for parallel actions such as:
The support of major academic institutions for Athens Photo World can only be considered positive and raises expectations for even better cooperation in the future. We were recently approached by the Dean’s Office of the School of Philosophy of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens to explore the possibility of organising an exhibition at the School as part of the initiative to beautify its premises, which has already begun.
Other institutions, such as the Ephorate of Antiquities and the Service of Modern Monuments, as well as the Association of Greek Archaeologists, had an excellent and very beneficial cooperation with Athens Photo World in 2019, building a good basis of communication for possible future collaborations.
Finally, Athens Photo World has been approached by the Czech Centre Athens, the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography and the Photometria Photography Festival (Ioannina) to explore the possibility of future collaborations. Photometria hosted the exhibition “Diava” by Dimitris Tosidis, winner of the Athens Photo World 2021 award, after his exhibition at the Melina Cultural Centre as part of Athens Photo World 2022. The artistic director of APW took part in a discussion organised by the festival together with Médecins Sans Frontières.
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