The first international exhibition of Bird in Flight Prize finalists opened in Lithuania

In the Lithuanian city of Klaipeda, an exhibition of finalists of the Bird in Flight Prize ’21 photo contest has opened in the exhibition hall of the Cultural Communication Center (until February 13). The exhibition features a series by ten authors from Bolivia, Mexico, Austria, Spain, Germany, Brazil, and Italy, including the winning project by German photographer Rafael Heighster about the consequences of the pandemic.

The exhibition in Lithuania is the first international Bird in Flight Prize exhibition. In 2021 almost 400 applications from 52 countries were received. The event’s scale has also grown: in Kyiv, the finalists’ works were presented on December 9 on the screens at the Gulliver shopping mall. During January, the works have been showcased before films in the Multiplex cinema network (28 movie theaters, 141 cinema halls). In addition, at the end of January, a selection of images of fourteen Bird in Flight Prize participants will be presented in an online exhibition on the PHmuseum platform.

“Each year, we present the finalists’ and the winners’ projects in Kyiv and choose to do it in such a way that allows us to show them to as many people as possible, – says Lyolya Goldstein, Bird in Flight creative director and curator. – For the second year in a row, we leave the gallery space and display art on the streets, on giant advertising screens, and on the screens of a big chain. The exhibition in Klaipeda features all the photographs of the contest finalists (in total, more than 120 images). In the framework of international partnership, a show in Berlin is planned, as well as an exhibition on the online platform PHmuseum”.

In 2020, Bird in Flight was a media partner of the festival “A Month of Lithuanian Photography in Kyiv,” hence the choice of the Lithuanian city Klaipeda as a venue for the exhibition of the contest finalists’ projects. This year, Darius Vaicekauskas, curator of the Klaipeda department of Lithuanian Photographer’s Association, was a member of the selection committee of Bird in Flight Prize. Along with other experts, he formed a long list of hundreds of projects.

“This exhibition is important both for Klaipeda and Lithuania. You can see modern trends in photography, watch people from different parts of the world telling their stories,” says Darius Vaicekauskas. – I was a member of the selection committee, and I know how many good projects were submitted for the contest. This shows that photography as a medium and as a tool is important for the modern person. And, of course, this kind of event encourages fruitful communication between photographers from different countries.”

Photo: Darius Vaicekauskas