Progressive – Street and Art – PhotoFestival

"virtual festival 2023"

The first edition of the 2022 ProgresFestival was a success and we had many guests, all happy to attend without asking for expenses or hospitality. They understood that we were a festival without funds but professional nevertheless. This year's will be different - as we will launch the definitive Festival in 2024.

Progressive Street 2023 produces a "virtual festival" that takes place online but will generate two paper photo calendars: one street and one artistic

The judges will choose 12 outstanding images for both categories. The 6 winners will each receive one printed calendar as a prize. Of course, we will create a printable version with Peecho for everyone else

The 24 winning photos will be exhibited in Autumn as well as printed in a calendar and PPH publication

This year's themes are:

**“Money” (for the Street category)**

For the rules see the competition page

Money and how this medium of economic exchange defines our existence, for the street competition

They can be images in which there is money, images that make you imagine wealth, and images that contrast poverty with wealth. We don't want pictures of poverty as the only protagonist, they would be off-topic. It's not a challenge about poverty, We can have a sociological discourse, but also with a bit of irony.

**“Nostalgia” (for the Artistic category)**

For the rules see the competition page

Nostalgia “Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.” Orhan Pamuk

We look for images that can evoke feelings, and create reminiscences in the viewer.

“Every part of me is a vague nostalgia neither for the past nor for the future: the whole of me is a nostalgia for the anonymous, prolix, unfathomable present.”– Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

NOSTALGIA

When Time turns into Space /Seconds become ditches of snakes /Minutes become mountains to climb /Hours are Towers of Babel. /And ages suddenly are cages /Where Lions of Eternity roar /And you and I have turned into statues /Forever imprisoned in a marble arch. / But if I ask the Moon / All I hear is: "Life is the answer". /When Space turns into Time /Cornfields become nights Headlands and bays /Become endless days. /And roads full of bends/ Become Winters of our discontent /And this city where we were both born Is the /Dawn of our glorious Summers long gone. /But if I ask the Moon / All I hear is: "Life is the answer". /And if I ask the Sun / All I hear is: "Life is the answer".

“Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.”

― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

Consistent with the demonstration of the search for interest and utility as the foundation of all sociality based on the gift, Marcel Mauss derives an interesting interpretation of Homo oeconomicus in the conclusions of the Essay on the gift. The distinctive character of modern Homo oeconomicus, its difference if compared to archaic man, would not consist precisely in the search for profit and interest, which was already present in primitive societies (and in the gift), but in the rationalization and technicalization of this research.

MONEY

For Mauss it is not the presence of a foundation of profit that indicates contemporary economic man as opposed to a 'disinterested and good primitive', it would be the scientificity with which profit is organized in the modern age: it is pure and cold calculation and rationality applied by the capitalist and the banker, to identify and distinguish the modern economic man.

(MARCEL MAUSS di Michele Bellingeri)

Our Festival is not for profit. The goal is to discover and show images that are true testimonies of our time, without cultural stereotypes. Images that are not clichés. Images by photographers who document meaningful examples of life, stripped of all artifice. Images that awaken connections, provoke insights and inspire optimism too.

We turn to photographers who are actively involved in daily life - yet specifically pursue street photography, documentary photography, and photojournalism without distinction between professionals and non-professionals.

We appeal to all photographers with a soul, because this trait is the impetus for all important forms of artistic, political and social expression. And all serious photographers reflect this trinity in their craft.