Mehraneh Atashi is announced as Winner of the FORMAT: Paul Hill EXPOSURE Award

Mehraneh Atashi is announced as Winner of the FORMAT: Paul Hill EXPOSURE Award as part of the FORMAT International Photography Festival 2011


QUAD in Derby has announced the winner of the FORMAT: Paul Hill EXPOSURE Award as part of the FORMAT International Photography Festival. Mehraneh Atashi, a young female Iranian artist was selected from over 4,000 images by a panel of industry experts. Mehraneh Atashi is one of the youngest female photographers currently working in Iran, where she produces work for a host of major newspapers, magazines and TV programs. Her photographs search out the quest of the younger generation for privacy within public surroundings, sometimes punctuating them with moments of great intimacy.


The FORMAT International Photography Festival 2011 will feature a premiere of her new exhibition, as a result of the award, entitled ‘Tehran's Self Portrait’. Mehraneh’s work invites the question “What if, one day your location decides to take some self portraits?” She explains “In the last 30 years, Tehran is faced with enormous growth. The population has boomed and the city has lost most of its historical identity with huge, ridiculous buildings. Lots of memorial locations are now culturally disappeared, and the polluted streets are converting this city from a live location to a transitory and ordinary place. I have tried to explore the idea of making statues of myself in Tehran watching the city through the eyes of a photographer - and as an urban sculpture. Tehran's self-portraits are shot on a Holga, a lovely plastic Chinese camera.”

 
‘EXPOSURE’ is an integral part of the FORMAT International Photography Festival and is selected through an International open call for submissions for ideas, exhibitions and events relating to the FORMAT festival theme. The theme for 2011 is ‘Street Photography: Right Here, Right Now’ and the festival will take place across Derby during March 2011.

FORMAT is also pleased to announce that the FORMAT International Photography Festival 2011 will feature the inaugural ‘EXPOSURE’ award supported by Derbyshire- based Photographer Paul Hill.


The aim of the FORMAT: Paul Hill ‘EXPOSURE’ award is to offer support to an emerging photographer at a key stage in their career, to enable them to develop new work and to feature as part of the exhibition in QUAD. Paul Hill said he was proud to be connected with FORMAT and to be able to support interesting new photography. He said “I am delighted to help support emerging photographic talent and innovative approaches that celebrate the primacy of the image so redolent in Mehrani Atashi's work, which imaginatively and tellingly makes the personal political. It typifies the ambition of FORMAT to bring new work to a wider audience.”

 
Paul Hill MBE is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential photographers and teachers of photography to have worked in the UK during the last forty years. He began his career as a freelance photojournalist for The Guardian, The Observer and The Telegraph Magazine and his work was selected by World Press Photo for exhibition in The Hague in 1966. Working in photographic education he became Head of the ground-breaking Trent/Derby Creative Photography course – the forerunner of every art photography degree now available. In 1976, he and his wife, Angela, he established ‘The Photographer’s Place’, in Derbyshire the first residential photography workshop in the UK and a centre which helped to influence a generation of British photographers.


Paul Hill’s work has been exhibited extensively in the UK and across the world including London, Stockholm and San Francisco as well as Derby Museum & Art Gallery. His work is held in the permanent collections of many major galleries and museums in the UK and overseas in Houston; Cleveland; Tokyo; Canberra; Stockholm and Paris. He has published several books, including Dialogue with Photography co-written with Thomas Joshua Cooper, Approaching Photography and White Peak, Dark Peak. His latest book, Corridor of Uncertainty will be published in November 2010. Paul Hill has received numerous awards including a Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society and an M.B.E. in 1994.

 
The panel of industry experts who selected the Paul Hill ‘EXPOSURE’ award winner were:

Louise Clements (FORMAT Co-founder Director and Curator QUAD’s Artistic Director); Mike Brown (FORMAT Co-founder Director and Principle Arts Officer Derby City Council); Sue Steward (Writer and BBC Radio 2 Broadcaster); Brian Griffin (Photographer); Huw Davies (Director of Berwick Film Festival and Dean of Faculty Art Design & Technology at the University of Derby); Nick Turpin (Director of In-Public and Photographer and Editor of Publication magazine); Johanna Neurath (Design Director at Thames and Hudsonpublishers); Bridget Coaker (Picture Editor of the Guardian Newspaper and Director of Troika Editions); Alfredo Cramerotti (QUAD Curator and Co-Curator of Manifesta8) and Juliet Cooper (FORMAT Co-ordinator).


FORMAT International Photography Festival is the UK’s leading biennale of contemporary photography and related media. It takes place in Derby, UK, and contains exhibitions, portfolio reviews, workshops, commissions, conference, screenings, talks, photo collectives, publications, international meeting place, mass participation, performance and much more. In the off years of the festival organises a professional practice programme, events, exhibitions and a summer school. The festival celebrates the wealth of contemporary practice in international photography. FORMAT is the place to see an incredible range of new work alongside the best known practitioners of the world. FORMAT is focused on developing opportunities to platform the work of international photographers and providing links for local/national practitioners to show work, exchange opportunities, skills and knowledge. The hub of the festival is QUAD a new centre for art and film in the heart of Derby city centre, the festival also curates exhibitions
and events in 30 other venues throughout the city and now also in Nottingham.  For more information about the FORMAT International Photography Festival, please go to: www.formatfestival.com