What fantastic images can be created by utilizing the full power of an indifferent mechanical device! The ninth Daegu Photo Biennale highlights the world of “photographic photography,” presenting extraordinary images that can only be produced with a camera, rather than by painting, language, or any other media. To this end, the biennale eschews the grand discourses that have typified so many international exhibitions and cultural events of recent years, relating to politics, the environment, global disasters, diaspora, or minority groups. Instead, this year’s Daegu Photo Biennale brings to the fore a theme that has not been addressed in previous biennales: “photographic medium”. In other words, it pays attention to the unique characteristics and power of the photographic medium that lead contemporary visual culture and visual arts by increasingly dominating human consciousness, senses, and art. In this way, the biennale seeks to revive the amazing power and unique capabilities of photography, which have been misunderstood as being forgotten in the visual arts since the 1990s, summoning them back to Daegu, the proud home of Korean photography.

Sangwoo Park, Artistic Director