HAMBURG, GERMANY.- Hamburg will be the center of photography through April 19th in Germany in the Triennial of Photography Hamburg 2005. With this years overhead theme “Archive of the presence” over hundred shows will present photography, supplemented by workshops, lectures, symposiums, conferences and conventions.

Photographer’s professional organisations meet this year in Hamburg and complete the program of the triennial with additional lectures and shows. Apart from the many exhibitions, photo awards will be given and benefits auctions will be held.

The photo festival will refer to the importance of photography and manifest Hamburg’s role as the German capital of photography. The opening of the International House of Photography and shows of international importance in most of the main museums will receive attention nation wide and confirm Hamburg’s leading place in the media world.

The second triennial 2002 was a great success. The museum and gallery shows attracted over 200 000 visitors, not included the guests of symposiums, lectures and other events.

This year the 3rd Triennial of Photography Hamburg 2005 investigates the “Archive of the Presence”. In exhibitions and symposiums, the safeguarding of photographs as part of the universal memory will be in focus. Which photos are in archives? Which photos are going to be kept? Archive, as well a deposit as a place in memory, is not a dusted place anymore. Rather a place for research and an object of academic theory, the archive is the topic of the day. Which changes are caused by the electronic media? At that point the motto can be switched around, in “the Presence of the Archive”. How much is secured in the future and how much disappears while you press the delete button? Or will the archive be only storage of data, without any criteria for quality and value?

The exhibitions and events of the triennial will encourage reflecting upon the different interpretations of “archive”: archive as a collection, a storage room, a memory or as a place of traces.