Juhan Kuus Documentary Photo Centre presents two exhibitions at Bucharest Photofest

On October 11–12, we opened two remarkable exhibitions in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, as part of the 10th anniversary edition of Bucharest Photofest.

At the festival, the Juhan Kuus Documentary Photo Centre brought Estonian documentary photography into focus and presented itself as an internationally engaged and multifaceted platform — open to collaboration and cross-border dialogue on socially relevant and universal themes.

We began on Saturday at the National Library of Romania with a large-scale retrospective “The Measure of Humanity. 45 Years of South African History.”
Among the guests at the opening were Her Royal Highness Princess Sofia of Romania and Aune Kotli, the Estonian Ambassador to Romania, who explored the exhibition during a curatorial tour led by Kristel Laur and Toomas Järvet.

According to Princess Sofia, Juhan Kuus’s photographs are “a moving testimony to courage, humanity, and the power of photography to make truth visible.”

On Sunday, we opened Luca Berti’s poetic exhibition “Nordic Blue” at the POINT cultural centre in Bucharest.
Originating from an idea by Kristel Aimee Laur and co-curated with Toomas Järvet, the project explores the relationship between humans and nature in the Nordic countries through the slow, analogue cyanotype technique — a language of light, patience, and quiet melancholy.

In addition to the exhibitions, Toomas Järvet gave a lecture on the life and legacy of Juhan Kuus and contemporary Estonian documentary photography, and hosted an artist talk with Luca Berti.

We are deeply grateful to all our partners who helped us bring Estonian documentary photography to Bucharest: the Ministry of Culture of Estonia, the Estonian Embassy in Bucharest, and Bucharest Photofest.

A special thank-you to Kersti Kirs, Deputy Head of Mission at the Estonian Embassy in Bucharest!

Juhan Kuus’s exhibition is open until October 19. Luca Berti’s exhibition is open until October 26.