Regarding its 65th anniversary, in partnership with the Museum of Arts and Crafts, the Festival will open a retrospective exhibition under the name of „Memory Shapers – photographers and designers of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival“, which will take place on Friday, 11th July at 9 p.m. in the Palace Sponza Atrium.
Over the course of the past 65 years of the Festival, countless photographers, some of which are today's great names of the Croatian photographic history such as Toše Dabac, Đuro Griesbach, Vilko Zuber, Marija Braut, Nenad Gattin, Krešimir Tadić, Slobodan Tadić, Enes Midžić, Pavo Urban, Ana Opalić, Damil Kalođera and others, have systematically marked the Festival's events, as well as have notable artists and designers, such as Edo Murtić, Fedor Vaić, Branko Kovačević, Ivo Grbić, Edo Kovačević, Tomo Gusić, Luka Gusić, Boris Ljubičić, Orsat Franković and others, who created posters and front pages, even complete visual identities of particular Festival years. Altough their work has been abuntantly used in many publications, their authorship has not been specifically distinguished, until now.
Apart from recalling its past seasons, the Festival wishes to honour its associated photographers and designers by releasing a catalogue containing the authors' biographies, which focuse on their work with the Festival. Art history profesor dr.sc. Marija Tonković is the author of the exhibition's formal conception. Preparations for the exhibition lasted an entire year, as the material had to be collected from multiple sources due to part of it being lost in the war year od 1991. This, however, created an ideal chance for supplementing and reconstructing the Dubrovnik Summer Festival's archive using the newly collected, now digitalized material.
The exhibition is a joint project of the Dubrovnik Summer Festival and the Museum of Arts and Crafts Zagreb, in partnership with the State Archive in Dubrovnik and Croatian Radiotelevision, supported by Epson, with the help of several other institutions and individuals.
The exhibition can viewed from 19th August in the Palace Sponza Atrium and the Visia Multimedia Centre, where a total of 34 posters and 107 photographs will be displayed. A multimedia presentation and a video projection of drama and dance performances by the Dubrovnik Summer Festival selected from the Croatian Radiotelevision's archive will also be a part of the exhibition.
