Zhang Yang

    nicolezyyy@163.com

    THE 2016 International Urban Image Festival (IUIF) opened in Futian District on Friday, featuring photography exhibitions, documentary screenings and seminars by renowned artists and scholars.

    Ivan Abreu, a Brazilian filmmaker and multimedia journalist who lives in Hong Kong, is showcasing a short documentary and photo series that he made in Hubei Village, an urban village with a history of over 500 years in Luohu District, Shenzhen.

    Abreu said he spent a week in Hubei for his documentary, interacting with local people every day. “It’s a very special opportunity for me to know more about the history of Shenzhen,” he said during the festival’s opening ceremony at Artron Art Museum in Futian District.

    Abreu wants the viewers to see from the exhibition that Hubei is an important treasure of Shenzhen and it is part of the city’s history. “I would be really sad if in two or three years when I come back to Shenzhen, I find that Hubei has been pulled down,” he said. “So what I want to say is that … we have something to preserve, not to pull down.”

    Istvan Horkay, a famed Hungarian artist, is hosting his solo exhibition which features digital moving images, graphics and robots in OCT Loft during the festival. “The language of art is a beautiful thing because you don’t need to translate it, just to understand it. Understanding is the most important thing for me,” he said.

    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.

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

    Solo exhibitions by 13 famous Chinese photographers are scheduled. A photo contest, called Families and Me, is being held in Shenzhen Central Park for residents to share their family photos.

    Original pieces by Marc Riboud, a renowned French photographer who passed away Aug. 30 at the age of 93, are on display 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.

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