Stefano Stoll is the director of the Swiss Festival Images Vevey-a bi-annual festival dedicated to lens-based imagery.
Episode 71: I had great talk with Stefano Stoll, the director of Festival Images Vevey. The festival in Switzerland caters to the photographic community and many of its permutations such as video and digital. The festival is running in its 12 year and opens on September 5th.
Daido Moriyama
I have been aware of the festival for some time. I have had a number of friends and colleagues exhibition there and the festival holds a particular affinity in the field as its home is in the charming town of Vevey in Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva. I happen to be quite biased about Switzerland in general terms as I find it quite a majestic and sublime landscape that is hard to ignore. It also happens to be one of the places that for all its raging beauty seems almost impossible to photograph based on its mountainous scale.
Taiyo Orinato & Nico Krebs
The festival is also home to a series of very prestigious award that is given out every two years to coincide with the exhibitions that follow. The last winner and exhibiting artist this year is Kristine Potter, whose incredible work Dark Waters will have a showing this September. You find her discussion on the work on Nearest Truth Episode 12. I also have a forthcoming episode with Gloria available in the next weeks. The award is one of the highest paid in Europe certainly and has given numerous artists including Christian Patterson a chance to develop and execute new ideas such as his monolithic “Gong Co.”
Christian Patterson
We spoke about many things regarding photography, the festival itself and the complications that can arise from leading a public festival with concerns of woke culture. It was towards the end of the episode and I felt that we had to underscore sympathies, but that the discussion was necessary from the perspective of the festival director. We also spoke the excellent book co-published with Konig Books on the ten year anniversary of the festival entitled “The Book of Images” . It was an exciting episode to record and there was quite a bit in it. I hope it was enjoyable.
