FORMAT11 announced as most succesful edition to date

FORMAT International Photography Festival cements its place as the UK’s foremost biennial of contemporary photography with initial audience and impact analysis showing FORMAT 2011 as the most successful edition to date. Early indications are that the economic impact of the festival could be as high as £1 million for the city of Derby.

The festival’s fifth edition, FORMAT11, took place at various venues in and around Derby, welcoming an estimated record 100,000 visitors to the city across its month-long programme, from 4^th March – 3^rd April. Curated by Louise Clements around the theme Right Here, Right Now: Exposures from the public realm, FORMAT11 presented more than 3,000 works by over 300 artists of international significance, providing the most comprehensive survey of street photography ever seen.

Attracting visitors from across the UK and beyond, as well as engaging local residents, FORMAT11 transformed the city into a vibrant and bustling festival hub, with visitor figures showing a 20% increase against the previous Festival in 2009. As well as engaging the wider general public, FORMAT11 attracted the attention of the international photographic community with over 500 leading photographers, critics, curators, and industry professionals descending on Derby for the festival’s opening weekend, which kicked off with a full-day conference exploring contemporary street photographic practice.

Showing curated exhibitions and new commissions by leading international artists within the practice of street photography, highlights included a new commission by leading Magnum photographer Bruce Gilden, a dynamic outdoor survey show by seven other leading Magnum Photographers working around the world, as well as QUAD Gallery’s Right Here, Right Now - an extensive survey of contemporary street photography showcasing leading practitioners alongside new artists from around the world.

Mob FORMAT, an international mass submission online project in association with Flickr, saw more than 10,000 submissions from around the world, more than four times the participants attracted in the festival’s previous iteration, exhibited in public locations around the city in a constantly-evolving exhibition.

There has been huge engagement with the festival from around the globe through its website and social media platforms. The festival’s website has attracted over 75,000 unique users to date, with visitors from 132 different countries making near 400,000 page impressions. FORMAT attracted more than 2,000 active fans through its Facebook page, and @formatfestival’s 2,000 Twitter followers generated a significant international discussion of #format11.

A number of FORMAT’s core exhibitions remain open, including QUAD’s exhibition which continues until 8^th May. Others, including Magnum’s Take to the Streets, are set to tour in the UK and internationally later in the year. FORMAT will return to Derby in 2013, for more updates visit www.formatfestival.com.

FORMAT Artistic Director and Co-Founder Louise Clements commented:

“We are incredibly pleased with the reception this year’s festival has achieved from the media, the photographic industry, and the wider public alike, attracting visitors and participating artists from around the globe to enjoy and engage with our most comprehensive programme to date.”

Festival patron, Brian Griffin said:

“FORMAT has surpassed itself with the depth and breadth of its 2011 programme, providing an unrivalled platform for leading photographers from around the world to gather, show and discuss their work. FORMAT puts Derby, UK firmly on the radar of the photographic community, a significant event in the international calendar. I am pleased to be patron of such an ambitious and progressive festival, and looking forward to the next edition in 2013.”

Festival patron, Joel Meyerowitz, added:

“Today we see the strong resurgence of interest in this way of working, due, no doubt, to the fact that everyone now carries an instrument capable of making an image. This simple fact has brought us, through the agency of the internet, a new generation of people from all over the world who are interested in what's going on around them, and for whom the immediacy of the events of their lives can be described and shared with the rest of the world.

The FORMAT festival intuitively understood this and has acted on it at the perfect moment, and by doing so will add the voices of the multitudes to the current literature of photography. The rise of festivals like this comes as an answer to the need to communicate across cultures and distance, and the desire to show what ordinary life offers if we open ourselves to looking at the humour, tragedy, joy, effort, grace, disaster, eloquence, harmony, and the rest of the full range of what life provides for us every day.”

FORMAT11 was curated by Louise Clements and organised by QUAD in partnership with: Derby City Council, Derby University, Derby Museums; and supported by Arts Council of England, Magnum, Troika Editions, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Blurb, Foto8, Shoot Experience, New Art Exchange, Aicon, In-Public, Birmingham Photo Archive, Photo-Festivals, British Journal of Photography and John E. Wright. FORMAT has been supported by East Midlands Development Agency through an investment made in Derby's festival programme. emda is one of nine Regional Development Agencies in England, set up in 1999 to bring a regional focus to economic development. Sky Arts was TV media partner to FORMAT, going behind the scenes of the festival in a documentary that will continue to show on Sky Arts 1 HD throughout Spring.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Images are available

QUAD is Derby’s new centre for art and film, on the Market Place in Derby city centre. QUAD is a gallery, cinema, café bar and workshop that anyone can use. QUAD is a partnership between Derby City Council, Arts Council England, EM Media, European Union, East Midlands Development Agency, Derby and Derbyshire Economic Partnership, Derby City Partnership and Derby Cityscape. See www.derbyquad.co.uk for more information. http://twitter.com/derbyquad 

For further information on this event, or any other issue relating to QUAD, please contact Kathy Frain on 01332 285422 (mobile 07791441941) or email kathyf@derbyquad.co.uk

FORMAT International Photography Festival, the UK’s leading international festival of contemporary photography and related media, took place throughout Derby from 04 March to 03 April 2011. The Festival’s theme for 2011 RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW: Exposures from the Public Realm. FORMAT is curated by Louise Clements and organised by QUAD in partnership with: Derby City Council, Derby University, Derby Museums. Supported by: Arts Council of England, Magnum, Troika Editions, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Blurb, Foto8, Shoot Experience, New Art Exchange, Aicon, In-public, British Journal of Photography, Photo-Festivals, Birmingham National Photo Archive and John E. Wright. Festival Patrons: Brian Griffin and Joel Meyerowitz.

FORMAT was established in 2004, by Louise Clements and Mike Brown, and is now one of the UK's leading non-profit international contemporary festivals of photography and related media. The biennale programme celebrates the wealth of contemporary practice in international photography. FORMAT is the place to see an incredible range of new work alongside some of the best-known practitioners in the world. FORMAT is focused on developing opportunities for audiences to see, debate, develop and engage in the best of what photography is and can be. www.formatfestival.com