Chester Photo Festival Symposium to explore Trusting Voices and AI at the University of Chester

The symposium has been organised by Associate Professor Dr Cian Quayle, BA Photography Course Leader at the University of Chester and Dr Alexandru Modoi, founder, organiser and curator of the Chester Photo Festival. Dr Quayle joined the Festival Committee in 2025, which led to a satellite exhibition featuring work from the Photo Festival programme, including contributions from BA Photography students, being exhibited at Creative Campus Kingsway. This collaboration has now led to the first Photo Festival symposium being held at the University. 

The event is presented in partnership with the Chester Photo Festival and will open on April 16 with a keynote, illustrated talk at Storyhouse Cinema in the city centre by internationally acclaimed artist, writer and theorist Professor Victor Burgin from Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. 

Established in 2024, the Chester Photo Festival launched with a pilot event before presenting its first full edition in May 2025. Curated by Dr Alexandru Modoi, the festival delivered a city-wide programme across multiple venues, including local businesses, galleries and cultural institutions such as the Grosvenor Museum, Castlefield Gallery New Art Spaces, Chester Picturehouse, St John’s Church, St Werburgh’s Church, and the University of Chester’s Creative Campus Kingsway. 

The 2025 edition featured 84 national and international artists, with more than 200 photographic works exhibited across the city. Staff and students from the University of Chester were also active partners in the programme. 

The 2026 symposium brings together 16 speakers from leading academic institutions across the UK. Sessions will be open to the public as well as integrated into student timetables. 

Cian said: “There have been many events related to AI, art and photography over the last two years, as well as the incessant discussion of AI within the press and media. In light of this, we are delighted to invite Professor Victor Burgin, whose work emerged in the wake of Conceptual Art in the 1970s. Burgin, who is now based in Marseille, has been writing about art, photography and theory, and working with image and text for the last 50 years, as well as producing contemplative video works which reference art and cinema through their encounter with ideas and connections, and how these are shaped by technological developments in apparatus, art and media. 

“We have also assembled a formidable line-up of artists and academics to lend their perspective on the themes of the symposium, and its focus on the image and authorship.” 

Building on the Festival’s commitment to amplifying the voices of individuals and communities, Trusting Voices and AI invites participants to consider diverse perspectives related to image-making, authorship, apparatus and technological forms of knowing and being.  

Further information and booking details can be found at: https://chesterphotofestival.com/

Caption: Victor Burgin, Adaptation (2023), digital video loop, 12m 32s (please do not crop the image).