Brighton Photo Fringe

“Everyone can get involved from amateurs to professionals,” says director Claire Lloyd.

“You can show your work in your living room or get together with others and show in a cafe. It is 95% non-curatorial.”

This is Lloyd’s first year in the director’s chair. She was previously education consultant at Folkstone Triennial, deputy director of the Newlyn Art Gallery in Penzance and director of education at the Institute Of Contemporary Arts in London.

“Having worked in one of the top ten galleries in the country, I know the art world can be exclusive. It’s like a club people can’t join. People say, ‘How do I get a show at the ICA?’ but the art world can be a closed shop. The fringe attracted me because it is very open.”

She has already turned the event, which has 262 exhibitors this year, into a charity.

“It will be the tenth anniversary next year and it was an unincorporated group. I wanted to change that.”

She has revamped the website to make it clearer and easier for prospective exhibitors to get involved.

With her educational background, Lloyd also wanted to bolster the networking and workshop programme.

Next time, there might even be a theme for entrants to respond to through their work.

“At the moment we do an open call and pick one artist from a hundred submissions and give them a solo show, which is essentially the keynote exhibition. It’s an opportunity for an emerging artist to put on the show of their dreams.

“We also curated a section of the Phoenix Gallery with three other projects – the Photobook Show, the Photocopy, and the Unphotographable.”

The Photobook Show gives visitors access to more than 250 photobooks collected at exhibitions by the collective behind the Fringe. The Photocopy Club – a bi-monthly exhibition split between London and Brighton which aims to take photography off the internet and on to printed matter – is still accepting submissions to be part of the rotating six-week project.

The Unphotographable are the designers behind the fringe rebrand (the 25,000 copies of the magazine and new website are their work) and have made a text-based show with photographers describing a photo they never took but wished they had taken.

The keynote show this year is On The Surface Of Images by South Korean artist Jinkyun Ahn.

It is his first major solo exhibition and explores mortality, immortality, death and the afterlife, through his parent’s relationship to each other and their family.

By playing with the images, repeating, repositioning and dismembering his parents, he creates a surrealist aesthetic.

“The judges were looking for some kind of story behind the work. Their one concern was that the images were cold, but at the same time they were drawn to them because they are striking and tell a story about Jin’s parents and explore his culture as well. It’s not just visual.”

In Korea it is traditional to buy a section in graveyard before you die.

“As you grow up, at some point you become the parent. You’re the child, then the teenager, then you become the parent. As you get older, you notice your parents getting older and you’d like them to stop.

“He is questioning his own mortality and obviously realising they will pass away. But it is playful as well as clinical. They are quite filmic, almost like stills.”

Jin will talk about his work at the Phoenix Gallery on the opening day tomorrow at 3.30pm, before the exhibitions open at 5.30pm, and many of the 60 venues also open their doors.

Lloyd suggests visitors check the website first before visiting exhibitions.

“Obviously all the work is not to everyone’s taste. Look on the website first and see what photos you like – some prefer documentary style, some like portraiture and some like work that explores personal issues.”

• Venues across Brighton, until November 18. For more information, visit photofringe.org