The Artistic Director of Photosynkyria 2002 is Eric Auzoux, one of the founders of the Synkyria back in 1988. His proposals for this year will lead us along pathways much less remote than those of the Synkyria 2001, more down-to-earth yet often no less poetic, bringing us closer to reality, to individual men and women and to mankind as a whole, to life itself and the different ways in which it is lived, to the business of living and living together.

This, the 14th international photographic festival to be staged in Thessaloniki, finds us more experienced, but also provided with a more compact and efficient organisational structure, thanks to the fact that the Museum of Photography has at last acquired its own premises in the Port of Thessaloniki. The Synkyria's major group exhibition will be held there, breaking with the long tradition which has seen the event staged at the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art. This year's theme, My Brother's Image, with its evident intention of stimulating reflection and debate on photography's contribution to humanism and humanist values, is of course reminiscent of its lofty predecessor of 1955, the exhibition "The Family of Man". Yet there is no intention of vying with the earlier event, either in terms of scale or in terms of content. Alongside the individual exhibitions which form the background to the major event, it will attempt a comprehensive survey of the whole field, drawing together the many approaches adopted by humanist photographers regardless of the variety of personal idioms. The feature common to them all, according to Eric Auzoux, is their highly developed sense of responsibility and their respect for the object of their work - in other words, their willingness to let it adopt the role of subject. It follows that this year's Synkyria will offer the opportunity to pose once again the question of the relationship between photography and art, and perhaps also, in these uncertain times, to re-evaluate certain basic aspects of the core concepts which define us, consciously or subconsciously, as intelligent beings and social animals: the polarity of life and death.

This annual encounter of photographers and audience is, as we are all aware, the result of the co-ordinated endeavours of many different organisations from Thessaloniki, from Athens and from farther afield. Taking over, in 1999, of Synkyria's organisation by the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography provided the institution with the necessary guarantees to ensure a sustained level of quality, since it meant that state support could henceforth be relied on. We must never forget, however, that without the enthusiastic support for this, Greece's longest-established photographic institution, of the City of Thessaloniki, of the foreign cultural missions, of the cultural foundations of the Greek banks, of the municipality of Neapolis, of private art galleries, of the award sponsors, and of a host of other organisations and individuals, the staging of such an event would be impossible. To these forces we must this year add the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle and the Greek Literary and Historical Archive of Thessaloniki. Collaboration with agencies from outside Thessaloniki, such as the photographic archive of the Benaki Museum and of the Greek Literary and Historical Archive, the Photography Centre of Athens and Apeiron Photos has been particularly fruitful, and their contribution is much appreciated, as is that of the Fine Arts Directorate of the Ministry of Culture or of the National Book Center. The Synkyria has always laid great emphasis on the positive effects of synergy with other agencies, manifested this year in the form of collaborations with two especially dynamic organisations based in France: Montpellier Photovisions and the Centre Regional de la Photographie Nord Pas-de-Calais, as well as the Metis agency in Paris. These are organisations whose efforts are not confined to promoting the work of French photographers; on the contrary, their networks have given us the opportunity to see the work of photographers from Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Belgium, the Netherlands and the USA.

The broad range of collaborations with photographers from outside Greece is of course a vital factor in the overall project of the Synkyria. Nevertheless, this year we must focus on the one hand on the Greek contribution, extraordinary in its richness and quality, and on the other hand on the overwhelming number of individual works and exhibits tackling the central theme, the relationship between photography and humanism. These are the same human values we encounter in the group exhibition "Man's Best Friend", recognising in the creature referred to, whether domestic pet or stray, another sister spirit capable of touching on the same chords as those on which the project as a whole seeks to play. The broader circle of exhibitions under the overall umbrella of the Synkyria will include work by younger photographers who are applying their talents to the exploration of their own horizons, as well as the remarkable exhibition on the Macedonia of 1908 to be mounted by the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, as well as the major retrospective of work by Andreas Embirikos, which, although strictly speaking outside the terms of reference of this year's main theme, does also contribute in its own way to the approach to the study of the human.
There will also be the opportunity for debate, where experts from the field of the social sciences and humanities will be able to make their own contribution and where the photographers themselves will be able to exchange views and experiences, while Echosynkyria 2002 will once again be presenting works by contemporary Greek composers, promoting as before that process of cross-fertilisation whereby those who have come to admire the photographs will be drawn to the music, while lovers of music will be enticed into a new communion of the senses - that offered by the vision of the photographer. The Kounio and Sani Festival / Shell Awards, for the best Greek and international individual exhibit respectively, once again promise that indispensable element of suspense, fuelling our discussions and engendering those lively disagreements which have become an institution in themselves.