Noorderlicht

The tradition & historical record

Noorderlicht (Dutch for "Northern Light") is an international platform for photography and lens-based media based in Groningen, The Netherlands. In addition to the Noorderlicht Biennale, Noorderlicht organizes exhibitions, an educational program, a publishing house, and its own print lab. ¹

Noorderlicht photogallery was founded in 1980. Ten years later, the photofestival was launched, becoming one of the most important international photographic events. In 1991, the festival became a biennale, until 2000, when it was restored as an annual event. From this date, the festival site has alternated between Groningen and Friesland. Since 2021, Noorderlicht has been a biennial for photography and lens-based media in the three Northern provinces of the Netherlands. Ton Broekhuis, co-founder of Noorderlicht, served as director until 2016. Kees van der Meiden succeeded him. Since 2024[2], Roosje Roosje Klap has been the general and artistic director of Noorderlicht. ¹

List of Noorderlicht Festivals (1990–2025) ¹

1990 – Groningen: Noorderlicht I 1991 – Groningen: Noorderlicht II 1993 – Groningen: Home 1995 – Groningen: Common Lives 1997 – Groningen: The Garden of Eden – Imagining a Dynamic Reality 1999 – Groningen: Wonderland – The Boundaries of Documentary Photography 2000 – Friesland, Leeuwarden: Africa Inside – Photography from Africa 2001 – Groningen: Sense of Space – The Human Experience of Space 2002 – Friesland, Leeuwarden: Mundos Creados – Photography from Latin America 2003 – Groningen: Global Detail – The Effects of Globalization 2004 – Friesland, Leeuwarden: Nazar – Photography from the Arab World 2005 – Groningen: Traces & Omens – On the Passage of Time 2006 – Friesland, Leeuwarden: Another Asia – Photography from South and Southeast Asia 2007 – Groningen: Act of Faith – On Belief and Conflict, Ecstasy and Excess 2008 – Friesland, Leeuwarden: Behind Walls – Eastern Europe Before 1989 2009 – Groningen: Human Conditions – Six Curators Share Their Personal Views 2010 – Friesland, Leeuwarden: Land – Country Life in the Urban Age (Part 1 of the Urbanization Diptych) 2011 – Groningen: Metropolis – City Life in the Urban Age (Part 2 of the Urbanization Diptych) 2012 – Friesland, Leeuwarden: Terra Cognita – The Relationship Between Humans and Nature 2013 – Groningen: TWENTY – Celebrating Twenty Editions of Noorderlicht 2014 – Friesland, Heerenveen: An Ocean of Possibilities – Human Resilience in Times of Crisis 2015 – Groningen: Data Rush – Tension Between Freedom and Control in a Virtual World 2016 – Friesland, Heerenveen: Arena – Visible and Invisible Traces of Humans in the Landscape 2017 – Groningen: Nucleus – On Art and Science 2018 – Friesland, Heerenveen: In Vivo – The Ambivalent Relationship Between Humans and Nature 2019 –… ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Noorderlicht”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Noorderlicht is recorded in open cultural data. The structured record cited below does not describe the practice, and this entry has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 2 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²