Introduction RAY Echoes
Fifth International Triennial of Photography
How do images contribute to our understanding of our identity, our memories, our emotions, and our ability to grasp and process current social, societal, and political challenges? RAY Echoes offers no answers to these questions, but rather – like a laboratory – many perspectives and opportunities for individual exploration.
The artists of the RAY 2024 – Triennial of Photography use photography and related media to explore and reflect on the challenges and tensions of self-perception and human interaction. Their works span the past, present, and future, from the intimate and personal to the collective. By capturing these diverse moments and phenomena, they create an echo that draws the public’s attention to their themes. Similar to a sound experience, they create an echo that is perceived as an independent event beyond what is depicted.
On this basis, RAY Echoes concentrates on three focal points: Identity, Memory, and Emotion.
Echoes Identity– Identity and photography: a relationship of love and hate, of similarity and suppression, a relationship that oscillates between classification and self-empowerment. Over the years, photographs have allowed those in power to arbitrarily organise and persecute people. But the artists of RAY Echoes also show that an individual’s identity consists of more than just one image.
Echoes Memory – The role of photography as a carrier of memory is complex and multifaceted. The veracity of the medium in reproducing events is just as questionable as that of memory itself. The exhibition asks how photographic images can be used to (re)create and/or manipulate missing or blurred memories – also with the help of AI. Photo-based works can also construct memories, experiences that never happened, but are manifested in us as such.
Echoes Emotion – Finally, the affects that photographic and media images can evoke through emotional echoes will also be explored. This includes how we experience and react to the depiction of certain situations and events. The response to the depicted conditions can vary greatly from viewer to viewer, depending on their own emotional state and socio-cultural background, challenging the assumption that photography is a universal language.
The RAY Echoes exhibitions feature historical works and new productions by international artists, including Mónica Alcázar-Duarte (b. 1977, MX), Jana Bissdorf (b. 1987, DE), Sophie Calle (b. 1953, FR), Maisie Cousins (b. 1992, GB), Omar Victor Diop (b. 1980, SN) and Lee Shulman (b. 1973, GB) / The Anonymous Project, Joy Gregory (b. 1959, GB), Jesper Just (b. 1974, DK), Jürgen Klauke (b. 1943, DE), Anton Kusters (b. 1974, BE), Dinu Li (b. 1965, HK), Jyoti Mistry (b. 1970, SA), Diego Moreno (b. 1992, MX), Nicholas Nixon (b. 1947, US), Mimi Plumb (b. 1953, US), Johanna Schlegel (b. 1986, DE), and Inuuteq Storch (b. 1989, GL). They can be seen at the following venues: Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, Museum Angewandte Kunst.
The RAY Echoes concept was developed jointly by Anne-Marie Beckmann (Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation), Alexandra Lechner (freelance curator), Celina Lunsford (Fotografie Forum Frankfurt), and Matthias Wagner K (Museum Angewandte Kunst).
The following partner institutions are expanding the Echoes theme with a variety of perspectives in specially curated exhibitions and events: the Historisches Museum Frankfurt, the KfW Stiftung, the Kunstforum / TU Darmstadt, the DZ BANK Art Foundation, Kunst- und Kulturstiftung Opelvillen Rüsselsheim, Marta Hoepffner-Gesellschaft für Fotografie e.V. at Galerie Hanna Bekker vom Rath, the MUSEUM MMK FÜR MODERNE KUNST, and the Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden.