WORLD BIENNIAL
OF STUDENT PHOTOGRAPHY
2021
CONTEST
The Student World Biennial, in the organization of the Academy of Arts, University of Novi Sad, was first held in 2004. In the same year the First Biennial of Student Poster was organized, and since than the Biennial of Poster has been held in even years, and the Biennial of Photography in odd years.
Since its beginnings in 2004, the World Biennial of Student Photography has grown into an important platform for exchange of ideas and cross-cultural encounters. Nowadays it stands as the first manifestation in the region to promote the achievements of national and international students in the field of photography. It gathers, via public competition, students’ work in one place, thus presenting a section of pedagogical practices of diverse art institutions worldwide in the form of a group exhibition.
HOW TO APPLY
PLEASE, CAREFULLY READ ENTRY GUIDELINES BEFORE SUBMITTING WORKS.
INCOMPLETE APPLICATIONS WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED.
Apply through the online entry form and submit all required entry materials HERE.
The results of the competition will be published on the Student World Biennial website shortly after the deadline.
The photographs will be judged by an international JURY.
The Biennial opening and awards ceremony will be held in Novi Sad on December 20th, 2023, at the Gallery of Academy of Arts in Novi Sad. For any additional information, contact us at email address akademijaumetnostinovisad@gmail.com
AWARDS AND PRIZES
1st prize: € 1000
2nd prize: € 600
3rd prize: € 300
3 Honourable mentions
Special prize awarded by non-government organization “Vojvodina OK” for the best student project in the national category.
All the entrants who pass the selection for the exhibition will be sent a certificate of participation by email.
3rd PLACE: Sara Kecman, Bojana, 2021.
JURY
Evangelia Katsaiti
Greece
Evangelia Katsaiti holds a degree in Photographic Arts from the University of Derby, and MA in Fine Art Photography from the University of Sydney; a Postgraduate Degree in Research Practice from the University of Nottingham Trent and a Diploma in Adult Education.
She taught photography at: the Universities of Western Attica, Jyvaskylla, Lapland. She taught in juvenile delinquency reintegration school groups and led an art group where photography was used for the mourning process. She collaborated with the Center for Research on Equality. She won the Agfa UK Award and a grant from the East Midlands Arts Council, as well as her photographs represented Australia at an international conference at the Smithsonian Institution. She deals with photography as a creative therapeutic process which can and does strengthen the person’s sense of belonging to their environment.
Evangelia participated in international conferences and exhibitions and her research interest focuses on issues of gender identity and displacement. She appreciates the value of photography as an act of resistance towards violation or exclusion. Currently works as a lecturer at Department of Photography and Audio-Visual Arts, West Attica University, Athens, Greece.
Mitar Simikić
Serbia
Mitar Simikić (b.1986) is a documentary photographer from Bosnia and Herzegovina and also works as an professor assistant at the Department of Photography, Academy of Arts, Novi Sad. His curiosity inspires him to explore unknown and enjoyed exploring new and surprising stories. He prefers his photo stories to be long-term projects and creates and in it he examines social values. Simikić’s photographs want express emotions and in them he approaches people, the environment and situations in a narrative way.
Mitar is represented by VII Photo Agency (mentee) for 2023-2024 and is a VII Academy Scholarship Recipient. His work has been recognized through awards and grants such as the VID Grant Financial Prize, The Everyday Project, Felix Schoeller Photo Award, Sarajevo Pohotography Award and Kolga Tiblisi Photo.
In 2018 he was nominated for the prestigious World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass. His work has been featured in numerous publications in the world and he has been showcased in various festivals and exhibitions.
Borislav Božić
Croatia
He graduated from the study of fine arts, majoring in graphics at the Faculty of Philosophy in Rijeka and retired as a high school teacher. For his continuous teaching work, he has been awarded numerous international and domestic awards and recognitions, such as: the City of Rijeka’s Annual Award for Culture in 2017 and the Tošo Dabac Award for 2019.
He devoted part of his artistic habitus to the lesser known and almost forgotten photographic techniques of the camera obscura. He was the leader of the photography workshop at the “Novigrad Spring” School of Creativity for many years. For a number of years, he was a member of the State Commission for Visual Arts and Design for the competition of primary and secondary school students in the Republic of Croatia. He initiates and establishes the “Principij” Gallery as part of the work of the Rijeka Photo Club as well as the Photo Association of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County.
He is a selector and member of the jury at numerous photography exhibitions. As an organizer and curator, he organized more than 200 exhibitions. As part of the work of the Rijeka Photo Club, he initiated and founded the Youth Section, the Section for lovers of analog photography and old photographic procedures. He founded and conceptually designed the Rijeka photography festival PHOTORI, which has been held every autumn for years. He researched and set up the exhibition “120 Years of Hobbyist Photography in Rijeka” and founded the e-Museum of Rijeka Photography.
He is a member of HDLU Rijeka, and for two terms he was a member of the Artistic Council of HDLU Rijeka, president of the Rijeka Photo Club and the Photo Association of the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County.
Vladimir Tatarević
Serbia
He was born in Belgrade, where he graduated at the Faculty of fine arts of the University of the arts in 1997. After completing a master’s study has traveled the world and been in over thirty countries in the course of a two-year journey by working for “Trans Ocean Photos”. In 2000, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, USA where he worked as a photographer for various companies. In the summer 2002 won first prize at the national competition of photographers “Life touch” in Atlanta. Towards the end of 2002, he returned to his hometown where he continued a career as a freelance artist. Master’s degree earned in the field of photography in 2007 with the theme “PIXEL like Visual element”. In the spring of 2020, he completed his Doctoral studies with the topic: “Use and abuse of photography in marketing”.
Vladimir had nineteen solo exhibitions and has participated in several national and international group exhibitions. Tatarevic is the first Serbian photographer who had the cover of National Geographic (Belgrade Mummy), which entered the top five headlines around the world for 2007. His work is published in several prestigious magazines such as National Geographic, Nature Conservancy, Cosmopolitan, Men’s health…
Works as a professor at the Faculty of Applied Arts of the University of Arts in Belgrade.
Bertan Selim
Netherlands
Bertan Selim currently works as Head of Development at the NDT in The Netherlands. In 2014 he helped set up the Arab Documentary Photography Programme (ADPP), a joint collaboration of the Prince Claus Fund, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and Magnum Foundation.
He regularly curates photo shows and lectures at different art academies throughout Europe. Bertan is a member of the Supervisory Board of the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts and a board member of Dokufest in Kosovo. In 2022 he joined Fotoevidence Board of Directors. In 2020 Bertan founded the VID Foundation for Photography to support emerging visual storytellers from the Balkans with grants and mentorships.
Honorable Mentions: Nicholas DuPont, Unbound Spaces, 2020.
Discover
CATALOGUE 8th WORLD BIENNIAL OF STUDENT PHOTOGRAPHY
2021
FINALISTS 2021
Winners of the 8th World Biennial of student photography
1st PLACE
Vassilis Pantelidis
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Faculty of Fine Arts, Greece
Project Name: Monologues, 2021.
Description: The ongoing photography project titled “Monologues” consists of a series of conceptual self – portraits. It is the result of editing heterogeneous episodes tracing the human condition; the result of fermenting the tragic and comic parts of life. The individual scenes adopt a theatrical approach where abstraction, paradox, absurd and repetition weave a claustrophobic thread around the human subject, without offering any sort of redemption or solution. The setting indicates an unknown place; the place of existential quest and metaphysical human agony levitating between the truth and the fiction of existence, the contingency and the uncertainty of life while embellished with sarcasm and irony. Monologues of a tragic comedy or a comic tragedy.
2nd PLACE
Fatemeh Abedini
University of Islamic Denominations, Teheran Iran
Project Name: Line Breaker Girls, 2021.
Description: An athlete, a coach, a wife, a mother and a leader of women’s sports club in a Charoymaq city. These roles do not represent her, but she can only be herself with all these roles. “Parisa Mohammadpour” Ms. Mohammadpour, a 28-year-old young activist. Her roles are so intertwined with her identity that there are actually no boundaries between them. She is just like the rest of the ordinary girls in her city, but what makes her special is this breaking of the boundaries. Such activities are not common for the women in this city – they are bound; but at the same time she knelt and stood on her feet – and she stood tall. Now she is one of the first female coaches and vice chairman of their city’s Taekwondo Federation. The family and especially Ms. Mohammadpour’s husband, together with their compassionate company, have always supported her courage and power and have walked shoulder to shoulder with her. Her husband is a farmer and he knows very well how hard it is for a seed planted in the ground to grow and to sprout. As the coronavirus descended on us, lifestyles changed dramatically. Consecutive vacation and housekeeping could not extinguish the beating pulse of sports in Ms. Mohammadpour’s life, so, along with performing her roles of a mother and a woman, she also exercises at home, in the garden, or even deep in the mountains; she becomes a mother and a coach. It has been a while since their club reopened and Ms. Mohammadpour, who was so worried about her daughters, regained her passion for climbing. Travelling this route all alone took her a lot of hard work, but she has become a bridge for the passionate girls of her city encouraging them to fly and showing them that ordinary people can break boundaries as well. And the world is waiting for the ordinary people to break boundaries.
3rd PLACE
Sara Kecman
Academy of Arts, University of Novi Sad Serbia
Project Name: Bojana, 2021.
Description: Bojana and I met through Instagram, earlier this year. We followed each other for a while and I couldn’t help but notice her exceptional, long-standing commitment to taking self-portraits. She usually places herself in a natural scenery of her home village; in a forest or by the river. What stands out most about those portraits is definitely her inner need to get to know herself through photography. For some inexplicable reason, I had a strong desire to photograph her. I was attracted to her energy and to something that I have often lacked – a tireless and constant need to create and to express myself. Although we have had a very good communication, both online and in person, we really got to know each other through photography, in the most honest way possible. During the period of a few months, we met only a few times, but in that short period we managed to find a common language and create something that equally represents both of us. We did not make any plans in advance, we just indulged in the energy of the place and followed where it would lead us. This project, our friendship and our creative bond is hopefully only the beginning of something much larger. Until then, Bojana, thank you for everything.
Honorable Mentions
Mohammad Rakibul Hasa
University of Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
Project Name: The Forbidden Love, 2021.
Description: In Bangladesh, having been abandoned by family and friends, transgender people are subject to extensive daily abuse. The existing and continuously growing transphobia and homophobia in society are obstacles in the trajectory of enlightenment for an individual. The featured individuals of the LGBTQ+ community share a wide variety of such life narratives. As a photo story, “The Forbidden Love” seeks to elevate and celebrate love, portraying their desire to live with and within love. The vividness in their expressions, their enchanting bonding with partners, and the simplistic honesty – all of these made these photographs possible, catalyzing the compartmentalization of the existing stereotypes. This project, perhaps, is a leap to explore the infinite and beautiful gradient of the representation of love; it is an attempt at redefining love beyond the gender identities and stigmas through the true reflection of their personas. The photographs and interviews in “The Forbidden Love” have been used as photographic tableaux.
Nicholas-DuPont
Parsons School of Design, New York, United States of America
Project Name: Unbound Spaces, 2020.
Description: In its current form, the natural landscape appears fixed in the state it inhabits. Although it transforms over time, we always physically experience the land in the present as it exists today. Rock formations are solid, bodies of water adhere to their boundaries and tidal patterns, and the sky is always above us, but the echoes of a place’s history are not always apparent on its surface. Unbound Spaces offers visual interpretations of how natural elements can be reimagined through their fluid evolutions in space and time. By layering physical images cut out from magazines with digital images of natural patterns and surfaces, the new compositions become obscured depictions that blur the lines between what is real and what is surreal. Throughout this series of work, landscapes are fragmented into multiple pieces and intertwined with photographs from various locations, breaking their boundaries of natural order. The images in Unbound Spaces also question the linear timeline of changing environments and what constrains them in their present states. Which elements of our physical surroundings are natural and which are fabricated? How are we bound to spaces as individuals and how do we bind them to ourselves? Rather than answering these questions, the collaged forms remain open-ended for the viewer to project their own perceived interpretations and conclusions.
Omar Perez
Universidad Veracruzana, Mexico
Project Name: Versus, 2020.
Description: Photographs depicting the relation between the rider and the beast – the bull, who will fight for a minimum period of 8 seconds during which the rider will tame the jerks of the bull. These photos are taken just before the confrontation; the opponents do not know each other, but still it seems that somehow they do and that there is a bond between them that makes them face each other from the moment they touch the land of the corral, always ready to attack each other. This is the Mexican jaripeo (bull rider).
Special prize for student from Serbia
GALLERY
Setting up the exhibition of the World Biennial of Student Photography 2021
Opening of the exhibition of the World Biennial of Student Photography 2021
