Review 2024

WELT.NATUR.ERBE
WORLD.NATURE.HERITAGE

“The gates of hell have been opened by humanity,” warned Secretary-General António Guterres in a passionate speech at the UN General Assembly in September 2023. He addressed politicians, entrepreneurs, and activists, urgently highlighting the devastating consequences of increasingly extreme weather events. “Our concern is great that all climate measures are being overshadowed by the scale of the challenge,” as humanity faces a projected temperature increase of 2.8°C.

A call to action that has long been at the heart of our festival. It is our duty to preserve the poetry of creation for our children. Through imagery, we aim to provide food for thought on fundamental issues such as urbanization, biodiversity, natural resources, pollution, and climate change — if not solutions, then at least reflections. This year, in our seventh festival edition, we will showcase the works of great environmental photography masters: Nazli Abbaspour, Evgenia Arbugaeva, Yasuhoshi Chiba, Joana Choumali, David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes, Nadia Ferroukhi, Sacha Goldberger, Richard Ladkani, Lucas Lenci, Luca Locatelli, Pascal Maitre, Beth Moon, Maxime Riché, Sebastião Salgado, Alain Schroeder, Vee Speers, Brent Stirton, Lorraine Turci, David Turnley, Peter Turnley, and Cássio Vasconcellos.

“We all need Eden as a horizon,” writes Cyril Drouhet in his essay for the festival catalog.
“There was a time when we carried a rainbow in our minds: we believed in the future, in progress, and our dreams were filled with utopias. In the third millennium, this color has faded to gray. But life, like photography, needs vibrant hues to re-enchant the world. That is the challenge of the coming years and the challenge of our festival.”

The bilateral photography project involving schools from Morbihan in Brittany and Lower Austria is also dedicated to the theme “Nature as Heritage” this year. We offer young people the chance to express their ideas about today's and, most importantly, tomorrow's challenges: How can we shape societal models to preserve our unique world for future generations?

“We have the choice to use the gift of life to make the world a better place,” believes Jane Goodall. In the same spirit of safeguarding glimmers of humanity, the festival will honor Martin Parr with the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award. Meanwhile, Norbert Span's images reveal why snowflakes are considered the “jewels of the heavens.”

The festival will also feature exhibitions of photographs by professional photographers from Lower Austria and the “Director’s Cut” exhibition by jury president Michel Comte of CEWE’s global competition “Our World is Beautiful,” which received over 500,000 entries from 170 countries. Additionally, a retrospective of 2023 will be presented through the work of Artist in Residence Ina Künne, accompanied by texts from the 2022 Thomas-Jorda Prize winner Raphaela Edelbauer. A particularly captivating visual highlight will be “The Human Footprint” exhibition, showcasing orbit imagery curated by Gerald Mansberger and Markus Eisl.

Under the guiding principle of Culture of Solidarity, the collaboration with festival partners Garten Tulln, Celje in Slovenia, and Month of Photography Bratislava will continue in 2024.

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Status: 31.01.2025