What is Photographia asbl?

Background :

Photographia has been around for nearly 30 years. We organise an annual photography fair in Brussels. PhotoPuce was always a familiar name for Belgian analogue photography enthusiasts. Still now people talk to me about when PhotoPuce was held in the hallways of City 2, a Brussels shopping precinct. The not-for-profit organisation evolved and Photo Puce became Occaphot’.

In 2015 Mme Housiaux, president from the outset, wished to retire and and hand over the reins to a new team. The Presidency was taken over by Isabel Leeson, specialist in wet plate collodion. Luc Robalo Marques took over as Treasurer and Genevieve Morgan as Secretary. Read more about the team here.

Finance :

Photographia is currently 100% self-financed including revenue from :

• Entry fees for its fair Occaphot’. add to this the future entry fees for CaroloPhoto and Festival Collodion
• Making the necessary material available to exhibitors (tables, chairs, etc.)
• 3 levels of membership fee: 25, 50 or 100€ per annum (membership applications are open for 2017).

Salaries and allowances :

The standard expense allowance for volunteers given by the asbl to volunteers who are members, temporary volunteers, the secretary.

Neither the President, whose yearly hours are the equivalent to half-time employment, nor the Treasurer, receive any remuneration.

Current situation:

Since the arrival of the new team, Photographia has made a technological leap forward. From now on a great deal can be done online, the paper newsletter has been replaced by a digital one, the site is new and fully developed, the Facebook page is kept up to date too and we have re-opened our doors to membership.

Our website already has a contacts directory. It’s something like the phone book, including training and workshops in all processes, where to buy photographic chemicals, new made-to-measure darkrooms, or one that is an antique collector’s item, a little pocket analogue camera, or even consumables like rolls of film or photographic paper and even places to have your old equipment repaired. This directory is made for photographers by photographers and is certainly not intended as a place to advertise services to the public at large.

Naturally, Photographia continues to pursue its original activities with Occaphot’, which has been forced to move to new premises this year.

The 2017 production will take place at a new address that we hope will be definitive. The Athénée Crommelynck, Avenue Orban 73 in Woluwe-St-Pierre, a part of Brussels, will be welcoming us this year with +-1000m2 over 2 rooms.

Future projects :

Photographia is actively seeking a place to call its own. The team envisions a studio and photo labs, a teaching room. The idea is to offer workshops covering a wide range of procedures and to invite reputable professionals to facilitate them. We hope to have sufficient space to provide board and lodging for the invited teachers. The organisation’s first port of call to find teachers for workshops and training is the contacts directory. The organisation aims to generate sufficient funds to take on its volunteers, some of whom practically work full time for Photographia, as employees, and to pay them appropriately for their time and for the huge amount of work that managing these events and daily activities entails.

It is not out of the question that Isabel might one day re-start Photo 42 privately, in order to be able to provide trainees with the necessary material to pursue their new-found knowledge further after a workshop or course. Photo 42 and Photographia complement each other perfectly.

Photographia has just added a 2nd fair to its portfolio and will organise the first instalment on 1st May 2018 in the gardens of the Museum for Photography in Charleroi.

A World Collodion Festival ia also in the works for 2018 at the Val St Lambert museum in Seraing, Liege Province. This will bring together wet and dry collodion and should consist of an exhibition, a workshop and/or seminar, a meeting of collodionistas who shoot plates together for pleasure but also the chance to open doors to those curious to find out more about the two procedures.

To recap, Photographia remains true to its original aims : promoting and protecting photographic heritage.