Traces Remain

The 14th edition of the “Fodar” International Photo Festival Biennale is dedicated to the theme “Traces Remain”. The title is borrowed from the novel of the same name by Bulgarian writer Pavel Vezhinov. In the context of the Biennale, it draws attention to the traces that time, human presence and historical events leave on the world — and to photography’s capacity to preserve and reinterpret them.

In *On Photography*, Susan Sontag considers the photographic image as a trace of reality, physically connected to what once stood before the lens. At the same time, every photograph is a reminder of transience: in preserving a moment, it bears witness to its passing. Between presence and absence, between document and interpretation, a space emerges in which images acquire new meanings.

How do we read the traces of the past in the present? What do abandoned spaces, altered landscapes, family archives and marks on the human body reveal? Which traces do we deliberately preserve, and which do we try to erase? Can a photograph sustain a memory when its story has already been lost?

The theme offers broad possibilities for artistic interpretation — from personal memory and relationships between generations to social conflicts and the transformation of our surroundings. It invites photographers to explore both the visible evidence of lived experience and that which continues to exert an influence without taking an obvious visual form. For traces also remain in the ways we live, remember and see.