Join us to celebrate the launch of FORMAT21: CONTROL at our digital venue, New Art City.

FORMAT is the UK’s leading international contemporary festival of photography and related media. It organises a year round programme of international commissions, open calls, residencies, conferences and collaborations in the UK and internationally and welcomes over 100,000 visitors from all over the world to its biennale.

The festival and off year programmes celebrate the wealth of contemporary photographic practice and feature everything from major conceptual works, participative projects, documentary photography, mobile phone imagery to the archive and all that falls between. We are concerned with what is happening now in the scene and beyond, whilst sharing and contributing to it.

FORMAT is the place to engage with an incredible range of work from new and emerging photographers alongside that of some of the best-known practitioners in the world. FORMAT is focused on developing opportunities for audiences to see, debate, develop, contribute and participate in the best of what photography is and can be, through our comprehensive professional practice programmes and a yearly international photography portfolio review.

Featuring special guest speakers

Louise Fedotov-Clements FORMAT Director

Professor Keith McLay, Pro Vice-Chancellor Dean, College of Arts, Humanities & Education, University of Derby

Rebecca Blackman, National Director for Engagement & Audiences Arts Council England

Brian Griffin, photographer & FORMAT Patron

Marina Paulenka, FORMAT21 Guest Curator

Adam Buss, CEO QUAD

New Art City

Ending the evening with a DJ set by Artist Juliana Huxtable an American artist, writer, performer, DJ, and co-founder of the New York-based nightlife project Shock Value and exhibiting in our show Matrix — fluid bodies, unlimited thoughts, curated by Marina Paulenka.