Tools
Created in Rouen in 2002 at the initiative of French photographer Charles Fréger, “POC” - standing for “Piece of Cake” - comprises twenty or so young European artists whose preferred medium is photography. The group’s raison d’être is to enable the artists to interact as they create, produce and distribute their works. The permanent links for this exchange network, in the form of e-mail and other multimedia tools, and an efficient website, form the vectors for POC’s activities.
POC is made of two structures :
POC workshop
POC workshop is a non-profit company.
All its networking activity culminates in regular meetings (workshops), with or without exhibitions. There, members talk about the path the association is taking, their individual and collective future. They can also discuss the practical problems that all artists face during their careers. Discussions regarding the production of photographic works, as well as video and multimedia and, more generally, questions inherent to any artistic production from conception to the finished product, are the focus of lively exchanges between these artists, most of whom come from visual art and photography schools throughout Europe (e.g. Helsinki, Rouen, Düsseldorf, Vevey, Arles, Lisbon and London). An artist-in-residence program alternating between Finland and France, implemented in conjunction with Pôle Image Haute-Normandie and institutions in Finland, and the publishing of works by various members, are central elements in this network. POC is like a permanent workshop that functions at a virtual level by making full use of the web, and at a tangible level by way of Europe-wide meetings between the artists co-opted from the original nucleus: Charles Fréger (France), as well as Goetz Diergarten (Germany), Loan Nguyen and Mathieu Bernard-Reymond (Switzerland). At the next level out from this nucleus are Patricia Almeida (Portugal), Rachel Reupke, Adam Thompson and Stephen Hughes (UK), Matthias Koch (Germany), Johannes Rompanen and Janne Lehtinen (Finland), and Thomas Humery (France), joined recently by Ville Lenkkeri (Finland), Trish Morrissey (UK), Peter Granser (Germany), Jasper de Beijer (Netherlands), and more... This network of artists, each of whom forms part of the contemporary current of “photography as art,” deals with the question of documentary recording and the relationship between photography and reality in biographical, fictional and serial modes that go beyond simple photographic reporting as proof of reality. In their own way, each of these artists acts at the fringe of the documentary approach to disrupt the notion of “objective” reading. They all remind us of the extent to which photography has been - from its very origin - a privileged bearer of the history of representation and how much more the artists can teach us about reality by using their imagination rather than simply imitating nature itself.
Since 2002 POC workshop has been funded only with the members yearly contributions.
POC editions :
POC editions is a non-profit organisation.
POC editions is manadged by POCmembers.
POC editions publishes books of european photographers including POCmembers (Patreicia Almeida, Goetz Diergarten, Bert Danckaert, Loan Nguyen, Charles Freger). And catalogues like "Alone Together".
POC books are distributed in France by POC, and abroad by Veenman Publisher (Netherlands), DAP (USA), Idea Books (Europe), Actar (Europe).
See POC edition Page for more info.
Want to be a member ?
POC welcomes new members on a regular basis.
A board of 9 members is appointed to approve new members applications.
After a positive vote by the board, future members are invited to join POC for some time before a final decision is made.