Hossein Farmani is a creative director, gallerist, exhibition curator, philanthropist and founder and president of the Lucie Awards in New York City, International Design Awards, Px3, Paris Photo Prize and LICC, London Creative Awards, Focus on AIDS and Farmani Gallery.
U.S.A –
Hossein Farmani lends himself to the very forefront of the arts community; his passions have led him to found some of the most respected companies in the art world. The most popular include: International VUE, FotoFolio, Focus on Aids (FOA) Foundation and, of course, the world-renowned LUCIE Awards that are now synonymous with some of the greatest triumphs in photography today.
In endeavors of his own choosing, Hossein proves time after time, that a worthy idea and hard work can result in great satisfaction and accomplishment. Manik Katyal, Editor-in-Chief of EMAHO, talks with him about his greatest successes and future contributions to the industry.
Manik: A photographer, a creative entrepreneur, a publisher and a collector, which of these roles do you enjoy the most and how do you balance each one of them?
Hossein: I think collecting is the most enjoyable thing I do. It involves buying which I love doing! It’s a great thing; it’s definitely the most fun I have.
Manik: Starting with your journey from “International VUE” to the many prestigious awards, charities, foundations and festivals that you have developed over the years, which has been the most formative experience for you?
Hossein: Creating the Lucie Awards has definitely been the highlight. Purely just the fact that I created something the whole photographic industry could embrace and make their own, it became so huge in such a short time – it has really been the highlight amongst all the things that I have done. Also, the Focus on AIDS foundation that I started has really, really helped me be where I am today within the photography world. So those two are really important to me.
Manik: Paris, London, Cambodia, and Myanmar – you have nurtured, promoted & given incentive to different photographic platforms across geographic borders. What are the challenges of setting up a photographic platform in another country?
Hossein: It’s always a big challenge when you walk into another country. You are a foreigner that arrives wanting to do something on a big scale, and they’re always wondering why you? Why can’t we do it ourselves? So it’s always a challenge – you don’t have the resources, you don’t have the knowhow to bring it together, there is always that initial challenge of ‘why are you doing this in our country?’ That’s the main thing to overcome and once you overcome that, people realize that you are not here to make money from them, you are here to actually help them set it up. What I do basically is to make sure that they run it, the whole idea is that I’ll help you start it and you have to run it yourself. Once they have understood we are not there to make money from them, we are there to start something new and exciting and share the same passion then I think usually they become more receptive to it. Suspicion is raised in countries like South East Asia; it’s very, very hard to get the locals involved and getting the masses to come because they aren’t used to hanging out with foreigners. Only the photographers who have been exposed to international meetings are the ones that will actually easily come. So there are many challenges in starting something in a foreign country as opposed to if you start something in America – people know you, they are actually much more open to the idea of festivals, much more open to exhibitions and people come because they are used to it.
