The Click! Triangle Photography Festival, which celebrates the medium with galleries, exhibits, and events all month long across the Triangle, has officially kicked off. Though many of these events and exhibits will take place in big museums like the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh and Duke’s Nasher Museum in Durham, the festival has its roots in a smaller gallery in Chapel Hill.

“This thing has really taken off, and everyone’s excited about it. There’s a huge amount of publicity in Raleigh and in Durham,” says FRANK Gallery outreach coordinator Barbara Tyroler. “FRANK Gallery has been instrumental in developing this consortium – and so have all of the people in Chapel Hill that helped us.”

Formerly called “FRANK: inFocus,” the photography festival is organized through a consortium of local photographers spearheaded by Tyroler. After relocating in 2009 to Chapel Hill from Washington, DC, where she helped organize the first ever FotoDC festival, Tyroler was interested in uniting what she saw as a “splintered” photography community in the Chapel Hill area.

“We had the Ackland and UNC school of Journalism and Art Department, we had the Nasher and the Duke Center for Documentary Studies and the NC Museum of Art,” she says. “We had all of these galleries and all of these schools, but there was no central nexus, no professional organization for commercial photographers or for editorial or journalistic photographers. Everyone was spread out.”

Under the direction of Tyroler and fellow photographer Bryce Lankard, founding member of New Orleans’ photoNOLA Festival, FRANK: inFocus united 15 partner organizations for a two-month festival.

Now in its third year and organized by Tyroler and Frank Konhaus of Cassilhaus, the newly renamed Click! Triangle Photography Festival has expanded to include 25 organizations hosting events and exhibitions with a focus on photography throughout the month of October.

Tyroler says that through the communication of the photography consortium, member organizations have coordinated events and provided support to each other. One key exhibit is PhotoVision at the Ackland Art Museum, curated by Peter Nisbet.

“Peter Nisbet and I talked about what the Ackland would be doing in October and we said, ‘Great! [PhotoVision] will be the focus for you guys for our consortium, so we’re going to craft this into the festival,’” says Tyroler, who will be a guest host for a PhotoVision walking tour as part of the consortium’s collaborative spirit. “We’re hoping that next year everyone will know, bring photography into your particular organization and we’ll highlight it in October. Even for organizations like the Center for Documentary Studies that does photography all year round, we’re saying find a special speaker, let’s combine forces and help pay for someone we’d all like to see in October.”

In the end, Tyroler says the goal is to celebrate the spirit of collaboration as much as the medium of photography.

“My goal is to build community through the medium of photography,” she says. “We have people come together to share ideas and inspiration and thoughts and resources, with photography as the hook.”

Chapel Hill Events at FRANK

engaging light
Engaging Light
Opening reception October 10th, 6:00 – 9:00
Running October 7 – November 9

Engaging Light is a month-long photography exhibit featuring the work of FRANK member photographers, cosigning members, and three guest photographers.

beijing impressions

Beijing Impressions
Artist’s reception October 12th, 1:00 – 3:00
Running Sept. 14 – Oct. 26

A photography and collage collaboration between Sandy Milroy and Barbara Tyroler, Beijing Impressions explores Beijing’s environmental and social issues.

rockin the spectrum

Public Art and Advocacy Panel
October 23rd, 6:30 – 9:00

A discussion about the role of art in fostering inclusive communities, led by a panel of artists, activists, and special education experts. Topics to be discussed include using art to help others and the point at which art highlighting special needs subjects becomes exploitative.

analog

 

Analog Slide Night
October 7th, 7:00

Come out to the Plaza at 140 West Franklin St. to see artists share their old-school 35mml slide photography – and share some of your own! Free pizza and popcorn will be provided, so bring a lawn chair and enjoy a unique evening of photography projections.


The full list of October events in the Triangle can be found here.