Berlin Exhibition
What an incredible way to round off the year!
This last weekend, as the snow started to fall in berlin, Germany. I attended the fourth iteration of Ólafur Arnalds’ opia festival, where, alongside music acts and short films, there was an instalment where 19 of my portraits featured the photographic art section of the festival. but i may be getting ahead of myself…
My portraits, featured on the walls of Betonhalle, Silent Green, Berlin.
So, who is Ólafur Arnalds? and what exactly is ‘opia’
Allow me to explain; Ólfaur Arnalds is an icelandic multi-instrumentalist and composer, who, alongside releasing his own neoclassical/electronica music, has written scores for the likes of itv’s ‘broadchurch’, apple tv’s ‘surface’, ronald krauss’ ‘gimme shelter’ and even hosts his own show called ultimate calm on bbc radio 3.
Ólafur Arnalds along with his team founded opia, an idea to create place for people to connect in real life; celebrating live music and visual arts together in a festival. in 2019 they realised their vision into an event in London. During the covid lockdowns, Ólafur saw how much people were craving a place to be creative in a time where we couldn’t do so in-person so easily, so In 2021, he and the OPIA founding members developed a discord server, which was was originally made for Ólafur’s fanbase, and nurtured it into what is now known as the OPIA community.
Today, the server now acts as a place for creatives, thinkers and lovers of music and art to come together, share knowledge and advice, Learn, post about their music or art, and generally have fun and grow as a community.
“OPIA Community is a place to inspire, and be inspired.
Born out of Ólafur Arnalds’ desire to create an environment that encourages experiments and collaboration, OPIA is focused on strengthening the scene where modern-classical music meets electronic and beyond.
A three-pronged entity, OPIA is a travelling festival series, a record label and a community hub fostering a variety of conversations and initiatives. These include a magazine, community compilations, regular workshops, composer challenges, and more.”
You can spot me in a few of the shots of the below video, which highlights the 2023 Launch event, and also explains what the opia community is in a really great way.
OPIA Festival, Berlin, October 2023 - Aftermovie
how do I fit into it?
In 2022, I made the decision to join the Discord server, initially entering the community as an enthusiastic fan of Ólafur's impressive work. My main intention was to share my own photographic creations while also seeking to learn some valuable music production skills.
I’ve been an active member on the server ever since and when they announced an official launch event for October 2023, hosted in berlin, I immediately bought tickets. During my time there, I had the wonderful opportunity to meet some friends from the server for the very first time, in real life.
Community Pre-Show Picnic, Berlin 2023
Meeting my online peers face-to-face and developing meaningful friendships and a sense of community was an incredible privilege that I will always cherish, equally as awesome as it was surreal. The experience of finally connecting in person after so many virtual interactions added a special depth to our relationships that I truly value.
Utrecht, June 2024
OPIA Friends, Utrecht, June 2024
in june 2024, just 8 months after the Berlin Launch event, another festival was hosted in Utrecht, NL. I once again attended the event, motivated by the desire to be around my friends within the community and to immerse myself in yet another round of incredible live music.
I recognised many attendees from the launch event and many of the new people I would meet i knew from the server, while others would be completely new interactions during my time in The Netherlands.
Before leaving to attend the festival, I had the Idea that I would share a post in the discord server to inform the community that I would be bringing my medium format film camera, and I would like to offer portraits to members of the community. I posted my intentions and received some great responses.
equipped with my Mamiya RZ67 Medium Format Film Camera, members of the community and I took to the streets of Amsterdam and Utrecht in small groups. We met for coffee, breakfasts, lunches and dinners, wandering the cities on foot, getting to know each other and building connections.
Occasionally stopping at interesting spots for me to make a portrait of one of the community.
On the street and canals of Utrecht.
Photographing Andy Yan
As some of you may be aware, photographing on film comes with it’s own challenges. The main thing to take into account is how many images you have available on a roll of film. the RZ67 will take just 10 images per roll of film and as such, everyone got 1 photo each! This meant that every image had to be carefully thought out and that absolutely no one was allowed to blink!
The exception to this one image rule was Paul, seen here in this video, who I was doing testing with, and also Andy, a community member from L.A, who kindly offered me a trade; I would make a couple of pictures of him, and he would sketch me. a fair trade for more than “just one” picture.
A Sketch of me by Andrew Yan
OPIA Festival, Utrecht, June 2024 - Aftermovie
The portraits
Below are the portraits I made of this tremendous community in Utrecht and Amsterdam, june 2024.
Berlin, December 2024
Outside Silent Green, Berlin. From left to right; Sandrayati, Ólafur Arnalds, Kimberley, myself, Rieko, MArtha, Syl, Fien.
Fast forward six months to the highly anticipated Opia Festival No. 4, titled “Return to Silent Green.”
By this time, I had already shared the June portraits with the community on the Discord server, and I had OPIA Managing Director, Hildur Maral reach out to me via email, discussing the potential use of my images on the community’s Instagram page.
Not long before the event was due to take place, I received an email from Hildur enquiring if the images could be exhibited during the December, Berlin event. I was, of course, very eager to accept her generous offer to be a part of the festival and help to celebrate the amazing members of OPIA.
I immediately set to work resizing the images to prepare them for print and provided Hildur with some personal words about myself, accompanied by a picture of me to be featured alongside my portraits.
Me, beside my photo and words.
the day before the festival, there was an event called ‘OPIA Conversations’, an evening of interviews and Q&A’s with music industry professionals. During the event, I had the pleasure of finally meeting Hildur and OPIA co-founder, Árni in person, after years of communicating online. They were both so grateful for the images and praised the initiative.
It also gave me a chance to thank them in person for deciding to feature the portraits as part of the festival.
arriving on the evening of the festival, the day after, I was so keen to get inside and take a look at the images, not only because of how great it would be to see them showcased, but also because it would be my first time seeing them in print myself.
I was so proud to see them up and exhibited, seeing all the sitters of the portraits who came to the festival, look at the pictures of themselves was a real treat and exactly why I got into photography.
The exhibition was there to showcase the community members, their words sat beside the images taken by me during the dynamic Utrecht OPIA festival, bar a select few members and featured artists (which I hopefully will have the pleasure to photograph in the future!).
Me alongside OPIA Community Member & Friend, Syl, with her portrait.
One of the walls of Betonhalle, Silent Green.
What’s next?
As an active member of the OPIA community, I will continue to share my work, listen and learn, build those friendships and rapports and strive to use my skills to educate members of the community in any way that I can.
I’ll also be looking to continue making portraits of people throughout my visits to future festivals and, rather than the “just one shot” I was offering in The Netherlands, I would love to travel around, visiting places where members reside and do more COMPREHENSIVE photography sessions of the community in their spaces, studios and places that inspire them.
for right now, I will sit and reflect on how amazing it was to have my images showcased in Silent green. I will Think about my experiences in berlin, surrounded by friends familiar and new, and I will take some well deserved rest over this festive period; Next year I plan to take my business to a whole new level, photographing some amazing portraits, so keep your eyes pealed!
Stay well, Stay warm, Happy Holidays.
JP
With thanks to the sitters; Dianne, Paul-Edouard, Inki, Silas, Zach, Timjune, Andy, Carla, Syl, Stan, Leliana, Kenny, Tim, Stephanie, Sophie, Oleh, Jaime, Eric & Anja
Huge thank you to Ólafur and all of the amazing OPIA Team for showcasing the images.
Source for OPIA quote - www.opiacommunity.com 
