Thematic reflection, aesthetic experiment, sublimation of reality: photography indisputably enters the area of high art. Modern photographers are at the same time artists, full of creative imagination, and true witnesses to passing time and changes in our societies.

That is why photography should be developed and popularized so as its presence became a norm in all bigger cities in Europe, especially in Poland, where artistic activity, including young artists, is very intense and significant.

Having been made in this very spirit, the Transfotografia festival is an international meeting focused on photography – already the second one this year – organized in August in Tricity: Sopot, Gdansk and Gdynia.

According to the proposal of Krzysztof Miekus, the Main Curator of this year's festival, Transfotografia will investigate an important and topical issue – the idea of boundaries and crossing. The programme, presenting contemporary images, will focus especially on photographs of artists from France, Poland and Switzerland.

Mainly through the “Boundaries and Crossing” project, whose creation Transfotografia ordered from five international photographers chosen in collaboration with the French Institute in Warsaw. The project's curator is Elka Król; the première collective exhibition will show works concerning the problem of identity in the East borderland of the European Union. Special thanks go to Dorotea Marciak and Stéphane Crouzat from the French Institute, closely connected with the project which – after its Gdynia première – will be presented in Warsaw and Lille in 2009.

Following twenty exhibits organized in Tricity cultural institutions, historical buildings and bars, will allow the viewers to discover the diversity of the photographers views on the idea of territory. And so, CSW Laznia in Gdansk will host Transfotografia for the first time, presenting 4 important festival exhibitions: the French Olivier Mirguet and Manuel Litran with presentations showing North Korea and the Verdun battlefield respectively, as well as American Michael Ackerman and Swiss Léo Fabrizio. Great thanks go to Jadwiga Charzynska, Laznia's Director and Malgorzata Taraszkiewicz-Zwolicka for this first excellent collaboration.

After Léo Fabrizio, two more Swiss photographers enter the programme: Michael Von Graffenried with his work concerning Algeria, presented in the Pomerania Science and Technology Park in Gdynia, as well as the duo Yann Mingard i Alban Kakulya with an outdoor exhibitions at the Sopot Pier. Here we would like to thank Urszula Kropiwiec and Pro Helvetia for supporting the realization of these exhibits as well as my friend, Marcin Kulwas for granting us access to this, such emblematic place...

We would also like to thank Vice-president of Sopot, Wojciech Fulek for his help on the occasion of the first exhibition of this sort in the most famous Polish promenade: Sopot's Monte Cassino – presenting a panorama of all the exhibitions shown this year at the festival in Tricity.

The official opening of the festival will take part in the prestigious Polish Baltic Philharmonic with the noteworthy exhibition of Thibaut Cuisset – a world renown artist – actually presented for the first time in Lille, during the Transphotographiques 2005 festival. We chose Gdansk as the opening city and for the „Absolutely Outside” exhibition because of the quality of Thibaut Cuisset's works as well as the significant support that Elektrownia Wybrzeze Power Plants and its president Waldemar Dunajewski were kind to give us.

A crucial place for the festival will undoubtedly be „Polska 30” in Gdynia, at least because this year it will somehow be the festival's „flag ship” with over eight exhibitions: from Sputnik association to Gregoire Eloy and Gauthier Deblonde to the abovementioned „Boundaries and crossing” project. Not to forget Rafal Milach, a Polish artist whose works I had a chance to discover a few months ago in Yours Gallery in Warsaw – he surely is one of the most talented representatives of young Polish photography...
„Polska 30” is also a special and surprising place which – of that I am sure – has enough potential to become a central spot for Transfotografia as well as for photography in general in Poland, maybe also in whole Europe... On this occasion I wish to thank Wojciech Szczurek, president of Gdynia, for his support for this year and future projects.

And, finally, for a real festival does not base only on exhibitions presented in museums or other cultural institutions – I invite you to see the photographs of Ula Tarasiewicz in Stacja de Luxe in Gdansk, Oiko Petersen in the Sopot club Lalala, Damien Braily in Mandarynka as well as slide shows in Spatif. Special thanks should go to Arek Hronowski from Spatif and my friend, Jacek Podworski from Mandarynka.

Concluding, it is a carefully chosen, original and varied proposition which – we hope – will conquer the hearts of the regular, but also the completely new public, not only in Poland. The festival itself boldly turns itself to Europe and promotion of the works – presenting pictures of the greatest international photographers as well as young artists, in order to support and promote new talents this way.

Let me finish this long list with thanks for all our sponsors and partners: from Zbigniew Maksymiuk from Saur Neptun Gdansk to the presidents of the three cities, who were kind to take the honorary patronage of our festival – not to forget the Dworek Sierakowskich and PGR Art crew and nation-wide, local and technical press. I would also like to thank my festival crew: Kasia Marek, Krzysztof Miekus, Maria Sasin and especially Monika Leszczynska who devoted her energy and professionalism to working on two important events; the Maison de la Photographie crew: Arnaud Boisson and Laure Cluzel who collaborate with Transfotografia already for the second time .
I also thank everybody who helped our festival to come into existence and develop as an important cultural event on the Baltic coast.

I wish You all a pleasant tour

Olivier Spillebout
Director of the Festival