320,461 visitors
46 artist talks, workshops and portfolio reviews
97 art education tours
7.5 million euros of economic value added
723 reports on TV, radio and in newspapers

NATURAL HERITAGE – A topic that has long been at the heart of our festival, and one that is an appeal to the world. The festival not only united some of the best photographers in the world, but also attracted a record number of visitors.

At midnight on Sunday, 13 October 2024, the La Gacilly-Baden Photo 2024 festival came to an end. 320,491 visitors enjoyed photographic art and garden art in the World Heritage city of Baden near Vienna. This makes the festival not only the largest Franco-Austrian cultural event, but also, in cooperation with the exhibition partners La Gacilly in Brittany, the Garten Tulln and the Month of Photography in Bratislava, by far the largest open-air photo exhibition in Europe: 1,612 photographs have been on display in 38 exhibitions, spread over 7 kilometres.

"The record number of visitors to the La Gacilly-Baden Photo Festival in 2024, now in its seventh year, confirms the substantive and artistic significance of this creative and photojournalistic initiative. The photo festival has provided strong impetus both in Lower Austria and beyond our federal state borders," Governor of Lower Austria Johanna Mikl-Leitner summarises her impressions.

"Superlatives are useless in this case. Something incomparable has been created in Baden," enthuses Lower Austrian novelist Evelyn Schlag.

"What a festival it was – the media weekend in Baden was simply magical. The photo exhibitions, which give the city a very special flair, are, as always, full of inspiration. They inform, make you think and give you hope. Believe me, your guests appreciate what is happening here for the European photo community! But most importantly, you are paving the way for so many people to have unforgettable encounters." Katharina Niu, picture editor Stern.

"Amazing!!! It was terrific, what a Who's Who and best of! Wow!", said biologist and tropical ecologist Pia Parolin.

And journalist Kurt Lhotzky noted: "La Gacilly-Baden Photo is not only the largest photography event in Europe, but also, thanks to its form of presentation, arguably the most democratic. No one is prevented from seeing these extraordinary works of art by material barriers. So, let's go to Baden!"

"My wife and I, along with our children, are deeply impressed by the expressiveness of the images at this year's exhibition in Baden. A truly intensive and lasting transfer of knowledge and a school of reality of a very special kind. You have given the municipality of Baden, us and all future visitors a highly valuable cultural asset," write the artist couple Christine Martha & Joachim Roedelius.

And Kai Rogler, Director of the Fotopark Forchheim Photography Festival: "France has Arles and Austria has Baden."

"We heard people say that you can't find a better exhibition in any museum," said Franz Mottl, an amateur photographer.

"Humanity has opened the gates of hell," warned Secretary-General António Guterres in an impassioned speech on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September 2023. "Our concern is that all climate action will be dwarfed by the scale of the challenge."

"These words remind us of our duty to preserve the poetry of creation for our children," comments Festival Director Lois Lammerhuber on the magnitude of the task at hand. "With the help of photo documentaries, we have tried to provide food for thought, if not solutions, on the fundamental issues of urbanisation, biodiversity, natural resources, pollution and global warming. That is why, in our seventh year of the festival, we showed the work of the great masters of environmental photography: Nazli Abbaspour, Evgenia Arbugaeva, Yasuhoshi Chiba, Joana Choumali, David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes, Hans Hass, Nadia Ferroukhi, Sacha Goldberger, Richard Ladkani, Lucas Lenci, Luca Locatelli, Pascal Maitre, Beth Moon, Maxime Riché, Sebastião Salgado, Alain Schroeder, Vee Speers, Brent Stirton, Lorraine Turci, David Turnley, Peter Turnley and Cássio Vasconcellos."

Stefan Szirucsek, Mayor of the City of Baden, is delighted: "The topic of World.Nature.Heritage has inspired many people and brought them to Baden. In the ambience of the city and its parks, photographic art was showcased in a fascinating way at the 7th edition of our international photo festival. The number of visitors confirms that Baden is the hotspot for photography in Austria."

"We all need Eden as a horizon," Silvia Lammerhuber, Commercial director of the festival, quotes the head curator in La Gacilly Cyril Drouhet. "There was a time when we had a rainbow in mind: we believed in the future, in progress, our dreams were full of utopias. In the third millennium, this colour has turned grey. But life needs bright colours, as in photography, to enchant the world again. That is the challenge of the coming years and the challenge of our festival."

The bilateral photography project between schools in Morbihan, Brittany and Lower Austria was therefore also dedicated to the topic "Nature as Heritage" this year. The festival invited young people to express their ideas on the challenges of today and especially tomorrow: How can we shape social models to preserve our unique world for our children?

"Photography undoubtedly remains the most incisive tool for changing public opinion and for preserving glimmers of humanity," says Christian Schörg, President of the Lower Austrian Photographers" Guild. The exhibitions of the Lower Austrian professional photographers "Natur.Erwachen" and the large-scale exhibition of the CEWE photo competition "Our World is Beautiful" are also in this tradition. These were curated by Michel Comte – president of the jury of the world's largest photo competition, with over 500,000 images from 170 countries.

The 2023 Artist in Residence was Ina Künne, whose pictures were accompanied by texts by 2022 Thomas Jorda Award winner Raphaela Edelbauer: "In all these exhibitions, there is always something that is inherent in the image but has yet to fully unfold in the viewers. The images are like tasks that each of us has to solve for ourselves – or rather, that we all have to solve together in discourse. Precisely because they are not direct prompts, they have a longer-lasting and more diverse impact than a mere shocking photograph. Such art is to be understood as a training in perception and not as a tearjerker spectacle designed to elicit a certain "emotion".

"We have the choice to use the gift of our lives to make the world a better place," Jane Goodall is convinced. British photographer Martin Parr certainly shares this spirit of preserving rays of hope in humanity, and the festival honoured him with the first Lammerhuber Award for Lifetime Achievement.

The pictures of Italian photographer Luigi Caputos told of the magical world of the Salzburg Festival, a world of magical transformations full of graceful beauty and fairytale elegance. And Tyrolean scientist and photographer Norbert Span showed us in his pictures why snow crystals are the "jewels of the sky".

A very special visual highlight was the exhibition in Rathausgasse, "The Human Footprint", with pictures taken from orbit and edited by Gerald Mansberger and Markus Eisl. A real crowd-puller.

Under the guiding principle of a Culture of Solidarity, the collaboration with the festival partners Garten Tulln and Month of Photography Bratislava was continued.

The Garten Tulln showed the second part of Gregor Schörg's work on the Dürrenstein-Lassingtal wilderness area. "The photographic interventions in the Garten Tulln set many exciting accents in the show gardens, and the reactions of the visitors were without exception positive, some of them downright enthusiastic,” said director Franz Gruber.

In the Slovakian Danube metropolis of Bratislava, the festival presented the Global Peace Photo Award exhibition at Rybné námestie from 3 to 30 July 2024. An exhibition that was visited by 66,473 photo enthusiasts. In November 2024, the Month of Photography will showcase further highlights of photographic art: Martin Parr, Rudolf Koppitz, Beth Moon, Cássio Vasconcellos, Gerald Mansberger & Markus Eisl, as well as the travelling exhibition Code of the Universe – an exhibition in cooperation with CERN.

Klaus Lorenz, the director of tourism in Baden, adds with reference to the festival's media days: "It was terrific, as always. This magnificent festival is of inestimable value for the image change of our city." 36 photographers and 91 journalists from Stern and NZZ to Le Figaro Magazine and GEO, from ORF television to der Standard and Ö1 Morgenjournal represented the Who's Who of the European media landscape. They were joined by museum directors such as Vaclav Macek from Bratislava, Michael Jung from the Hans Hass Archive in Merzig-Weiler, and Andréa Holzherr, representing the world's most important photo agency, Magnum in Paris.

Finally, a look back. A very special moment of the festival was its festive opening. Dorothy Khadem-Missagh conducted Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony in the festival hall of the Casino Baden. The rhythm of the sound of the Beethoven Frühling Orchestra was followed by the images of the festival's exhibitions on two giant screens. "It was a wonderful evening, the combination of the wonderfully played Pastoral Symphony and the intense photos that were coordinated with it, both together told a story of great intensity and became a total work of art, similar to an opera and yet completely different. I have never experienced anything like it before. Something quite unique has been achieved. Baden can count itself lucky to have such inspired people, and I will always treasure this evening," said Monika Washietl. Standing ovations.

Besucherrekord beim Festival La Gacilly-Baden Photo 2024

320.461 Besucherinnen und Besucher
46 Artist Talks, Workshops und Portfolioreviews
97 Kunst vermittelnde Führungen
7,5 Millionen Euro wirtschaftliche Wertschöpfung
723 Berichte im TV, Radio und Zeitungen

Der Besucherrekord beim Festival La Gacilly-Baden Photo 2024 bestätigt im siebten Jahr seines Bestehens die inhaltliche und künstlerische Bedeutung dieser kreativen und fotojournalistischen Initiative. Das Fotofestival hat sowohl in Niederösterreich als auch über die Grenzen des Bundeslandes hinaus starke Impulse gesetzt.

320.491 Besucherinnen und Besucher genossen Fotokunst und Gartenkunst in der Welterbestadt Baden bei Wien. Damit ist das Festival nicht nur die größte französisch-österreichische Kulturveranstaltung, sondern in Kooperation mit den Ausstellungspartnern La Gacilly in der Bretagne, der Garten Tulln und dem Monat der Fotografie in Bratislava die mit Abstand größte Open-Air-Fotoausstellung Europas: 1.612 Fotografien waren in 38 Ausstellungen zu sehen, verteilt auf 7 Kilometer.

Welt.Natur.Erbe – Ein Thema als Appell an die Welt, der längst ins Herz des Festivals eingeschrieben ist, hat nicht nur die Mitwirkung der besten Fotografinnen und Fotografen der Welt beschert, sondern auch viele begeisterte Besucherinnen und Besucher, die fasziniert waren von der im Ambiente der Stadt und der Parkanlagen inszenierten Fotokunst.

"Die Menschheit hat die Tore zur Hölle geöffnet", warnte Generalsekretär António Guterres in einer leidenschaftlichen Rede am Rande der UN-Generalversammlung im September 2023. "Unsere Sorge ist groß, dass alle Klimamaßnahmen vom Ausmaß der Herausforderung in den Schatten gestellt werden."

"Diese Worte nehmen uns in die Pflicht, die Poesie der Schöpfung unseren Kindern zu bewahren", kommentiert Festivaldirektor Lois Lammerhuber die Größe der gestellten Aufgabe. "Zu den grundlegenden Fragen der Urbanisierung, der Artenvielfalt, der natürlichen Ressourcen, der Umweltverschmutzung oder der Klimaerwärmung haben wir versucht, mit Hilfe von Foto-Dokumentationen, wenn schon nicht Lösungen, so doch zumindest Denkanstöße zu geben. Daher haben wir in unserem siebten Festivaljahr die Arbeiten der großen Meister der Umweltfotografie gezeigt: Nazli Abbaspour, Evgenia Arbugaeva, Yasuhoshi Chiba, Joana Choumali, David Doubilet und Jennifer Hayes, Hans Hass, Nadia Ferroukhi, Sacha Goldberger, Richard Ladkani, Lucas Lenci, Luca Locatelli, Pascal Maitre, Beth Moon, Maxime Riché, Sebastião Salgado, Alain Schroeder, Vee Speers, Brent Stirton, Lorraine Turci, David Turnley, Peter Turnley und Cássio Vasconcellos".

"Wir haben die Wahl, das Geschenk unseres Lebens zu nutzen, um die Welt zu einem besseren Ort zu machen", ist Jane Goodall überzeugt. In diesem Geist, Lichtblicke der Menschlichkeit zu bewahren, steht gewiss der britische Fotograf Martin Parr, den das Festival mit dem erstmals vergebenen Lammerhuber Award for Lifetime Achievement geehrt hat.

Die Bilder des italienischen Fotografen Luigi Caputos erzählten von der Zauberwelt der Salzburger Festspiele, einer Welt magischer Verwandlungen voll anmutiger Schönheit und märchenhafter Eleganz. Und der Tiroler Fotograf Norbert Span, zeigte uns in seinen Bildern, warum Schneekristalle die "Juwelen des Himmels" sind.

Ein ganz besonderes visuelles Highlight war die Ausstellung in der Rathausgasse "The Human Footprint", mit Bildern aus dem Orbit, aufbereitet von Gerald Mansberger und Markus Eisl. Ein echter Publikumsmagnet wie auch die Ausstellung "Der Chronist" von Martin Parr.

Unter dem Leitgedanken Culture of Solidarity wurde die Zusammenarbeit mit den Festivalpartnern Garten Tulln und Monat der Fotografie Bratislava fortgesetzt.

Die Garten Tulln zeigte den zweiten Teil von Gregor Schörgs Arbeit über das Wildnisgebiet Dürrenstein-Lassingtal. Die fotografischen Interventionen in der Garten Tulln setzten in den Schaugärten viele spannende Akzente, die Reaktionen der Besucherinnen und Besucher waren ausnahmslos positiv, manche geradezu enthusiastisch.

In der slowakischen Donaumetropole Bratislava hat das Festival vom 3. bis zum 30. Juli 2024 die Global Peace Photo Award Ausstellung in der Rybné námestie präsentiert. Eine Ausstellung, die von 66.473 Fotobegeisterten besucht wurde. Im November 2024 werden im Rahmen des Monats der Fotografie weitere Glanzlichter der Fotokunst gezeigt werden: Martin Parr, Rudolf Koppitz, Beth Moon, Cássio Vasconcellos, Gerald Mansberger & Markus Eisl sowie die Wanderausstellung "Code of the Universe" – eine Ausstellung in Kooperation mit dem CERN.