We are pleased to announce our main programme for the 2010 Noorderlicht Photofestival. On 5 September the doors open for public in the Fries Museum and Blokhuispoort in Leeuwarden. The coming weeks we will inform you regularly about our festival activities. In this newsletter the first glimpse of the main exhibitions: Land - Country Life in the Urban Age and Warzone.

© Jackie Nickerson, large image: © Nadav Kander

Since the beginning of the new millennium, more than half of the world’s population live in cities. In its 2010 and 2011 photo festivals Noorderlicht focuses on the consequences of this urbanization, both for the cities themselves and for rural areas. Land, the 2010 edition, takes stock of what remains of the old countryside idyll in a time of depopulation, a rising median age and agricultural mass production. Through the work of photographers from all corners of the world Land creates a poignant image of worldwide economic, cultural and ecological destruction.

© Brigitte Grignet

We are pleased to announce the participating photographers. Other updates on the festival will be posted soon on our website.

location: FRIES MUSEUM
Turfmarkt 11, Leeuwarden, Netherlands
5 September through 31 October

Most citizens of the free West have never been directly confronted with armed battle. But our soldiers have, serving in conflict areas far from home. Their experience of war is the central theme of Warzone. How does war affect the lives of soldiers and of their loved ones, and how do they deal with a reality which most of us can never relate to? In a diverse, at times hard-hitting exhibition and publication, Warzone shows the political and the personal, violence and boredom, suffering and camaraderie.

© Lodewijk Duijvesteijn

On 25 September the book Warzone will be launched. You are welcome to attend the presentation, please send an email to info@noorderlicht.com.

location: BLOKHUISPOORT
Blokhuisplein 40, Leeuwarden
5 September through 31 October

Noorderlicht Photogallery

To mark 50 years of independence in the Congo, Noorderlicht Photogallery is showing two exhibitions about that country. The first, Congo belge en images, is the result of an expedition of discovery that Magnum photographer Carl De Keyzer and architectural historian Johan Lagae made through the photography collection of the Royal Museum for Central Africa. They selected unconventional material from the period of the Congo Free State (1885-1908), the private plantation of Belgian king Leopold II, photographs which confirm and unsettle clichés about the colonial past.

photo Flamand, s.d., © KMMA Tervuren Antelope calf being bottle fed.

You can still visit the exhibition through 8 August. The second exhibition 'Congo (belge)' by Carl De Keyzer on modern Congo will be on show from 14 August.

Location: Noorderlicht Photogallery
Akerkhof 12, Groningen NL
Open: Wed thru Sun 12:00-18:00h
Admission: free
Through 8 August

A young talent award and exhibition for European music photographers.

The Lex van Rossen Award is an annual prize to encourage young European music photographers. The prize is awarded during the Eurosonic Noorderslag festival in Groningen, The Netherlands.

European music photographers under the age of 35 are invited to apply for this competition. The exhibition, which features the nominees will take place in the Noorderlicht Photogallery starting on 14 January 2011. 

© Graham Smith, winner Lex van Rossen Award 2010