Rotterdam Photo is an annual photo manifestation that takes place during Art Rotterdam Week, where art lovers will have the opportunity to visit numerous art and design events. Located at Deliplein in the Katendrecht district the event celebrates the wide spectrum of photography as it presents itself in our contemporary image culture. Together with the exhibitions at the Nederlands Fotomuseum and the fine art photography fair Haute Photographie, the ‚Kop van Zuid‘ transforms into the one stop hub for photography fans, from 6 till 09 February 2020.

Each year Rotterdam Photo invites a wide gamut of independent photographers. From amateurs to fine art and from documentary to street, photographers are invited to submit their work via an open call that revolves around an actual theme that is announced mid-September. Inspired by the heritage of Rotterdam as a port city the festival provides the selected photographers with exhibition space in repurposed shipping containers and also uses the public space of Rotterdam to bring photography outside the ‚white cube‘.

In addition to the exhibitions, Rotterdam Photo organizes talks, workshops and a fringe program with music and exhibitions on digital screens in the city. Our neighbors at the Deliplein join forces to offer fringe exhibitions and leisurely activities. Street vendors, cafes and restaurants in the area also offer great food and delicious drinks, so the public can spend their time during Art Rotterdam Week, tasting the raw and edgy couleur locale of the most coolest and upcoming neighborhood of Rotterdam, Katendrecht.

An einer Schiffscontainerwand von 5.9m habe ich fünf Bilder der Gletscher Morteratsch-, Roseg- und Zinal ausstellt.

Pictures of Hanspeter Schachtler at the Rotterdam Photo Festival 2020.

TRANSITIONS – Where the Glacier Landscape gets Lost and Creates something New.

Glaciers! Created over a long time in the empire of the cold to spread over the valleys, always transforming anew, living and conserving. Lying in the edges of the civilisation, they are hidden on our maps mostly as not cultivated, white spots, as places of the “eternal ice”.

And nevertheless! Glaciers and ice, what a strong symbol of the absolutely transient! A rare coincidence will awake something never seen. Maybe we will be witness of an incomparable kind of light. Unfortunately only a short life will be granted to these new creations of beauty. It will force us to stop, to gaze in disbelief, maybe even shudder. Soon the law of nature will alter every discovered piece of art and all material remembrance will be breaking up.

The ice looks to us with two faces. The glance of the hasty one will catch a superficial impression of the accidental encounter. The full beauty seldom reveals itself by the first view. It requires playing a careful approach, of discovering at the right place and light. And then, with some luck, everything finds exactly at this place and in this time together to a new kind of beauty. Embossed in the ice as a unique creation. At this moment of astonishment all the surrounding gets fully forgotten.

These series of photographs have been taken from 2010 to 2016 at different places at Switzerland. All these places I have visited at that time are now far away from the active glacier, and what remained is a landscape of bare rock and scree.

Website: Rotterdam Photo