Looking back on 'Life Stories'

November was the month of the mini-festival “Life Stories” organised by BredaPhoto and Pride Photo. A month of indoor and outdoor exhibitions in Breda, workshops, film and literary evenings, meetings and school visits. A month full of activities based on the unshakeable conviction that everyone should be able to be themselves, that you should be free to love whomever you want to love.

Photographers, artists and writers managed to amaze and enchant us and our audience. For “Life Stories”, BredaPhoto and Pride Photo collaborated with various social and cultural organisations, including the literary production house Tilt from Tilburg. Visitors were enthusiastic. We often heard that it was a boost in times when diversity and inclusion are often under pressure.

The mini-festival is over, but some activities are still ongoing. For example, the exhibition in city library Nieuwe Veste about a workshop on making photo comics by Ype Driessen has been extended by a month, and the Timeline on the history of queer persons in the world, Europe, the Netherlands and Breda has been given a second life at Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas).

BredaPhoto would like to express its gratitude to our cultural partners, as well as COC Tilburg-Breda, the municipality of Breda, the Province of North Brabant, Brabant C, the Chassé Culture Fund, the Dutch Foundation for Literature, our donors and sponsor MPB, Europe’s top camera reseller. And, of course, we would like to thank all our visitors to “Life Stories”.

We will be back next September with the 12th edition of the BredaPhoto Festival. We hope to welcome everyone again to a photo festival that likes to explore boundaries and is just as keen to break them down.

We look forward to seeing you then!