Zhang Yang

    nicolezyyy@163.com

    THE 2016 International Urban Image Festival (IUIF) is scheduled to open in Futian District on Sept. 23, featuring photography exhibitions, documentary screenings and seminars by renowned artists and scholars.

    The monthlong festival, with the theme “Je est un autre,” meaning “I am others” in French, was initiated and sponsored by the Futian District Government and co-organized by Daken Art Organization. The festival has been held in the district for two consecutive years.

    Chen Dong, Daken’s spokesperson, said this year’s festival will consist of international, domestic, local and independent sections.

    In the international section, group exhibitions of overseas masterpieces such as Magnum Contact Sheets Exhibition, A Century of the American National Geographic Exhibition and WPP 2016 China Exhibition Tour will be held at the Shenzhen University Art Museum and Shenzhen Central Park. Documentaries from Poland and France will be screened in OCT Loft.

    Thirteen famous Chinese photographers will have solo exhibitions for the domestic section. “We want each photographer to showcase their uniqueness by hosting solo exhibitions, and we also want to demonstrate the trend and new force of these up-and-coming artists by gathering them together,” said Hu Bin with the Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.

    In the local section, photographs featuring Shenzhen’s urban villages, such as Hubei Village, will be on display at the Shenzhen Book City CBD Store. A photo contest, called Families and Me, will be held in Shenzhen Central Park during the festival for residents to share their family photos.

    Original pieces by Marc Riboud, a renowned French photographer who passed away Aug. 30 at age 93, will be displayed in OCT Loft. The late photographer, best known for his extensive reports on the East, was one of the first European photographers to come to China in the 1950s. He received many awards including a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Sony World Photography Awards in 2009.

    Hungarian artist Istvan Horkay, Chinese photographer Gao Yuan and American photographer Lois Greenfield — who is best known for her unique approach to photographing the human form in motion — will also have solo exhibitions in OCT Loft, Book City CBD Store and Shenzhen Futian Painting Theme Pavilion during the festival, which will conclude Oct. 22.