The Brighton Photo Biennial is about breaking the mould, even if it’s that of their own – and this year’s no exception. The annual event is stepping away from their usual single curator model which has been in place since the festival’s inception in 2003, and has previously seen art world big wigs such anthropological photographer Martin Parr and artist Jeremy Millar take to its creative helm. For 2014, the month-long Biennial will instead focus on partnerships, taking heed from this year’s theme of Communities, Collectives & Collaboration. Featuring art collectives such as Artists’ Books Cooperative (ABC), who have dressed up each room as different novels, Sputnik Photos, a collective of documentary photographers who observe their Central and Eastern European post-Soviet existence through a lens, Burn My Eye and Uncertain States, who aim to create new dialogue from religion, politics and self-identity with their eponymous quarterly broadsheet. Below, we catch up with Uncertain States’ co-founder David George ahead of the launch this weekend.

Could you describe the Uncertain States series included in this year's BPB?

David George: The series was curated to try and show the range and styles of the photographers currently working with us.

How does the series tie in with this year’s theme of Communities, Collectives & Collaboration?

David George: We're not a collective in the absolute sense of the word but we do count ourselves as a constantly evolving community that involves artists and creatives from many disciplines.

Saying that, this year’s Biennial is all about partnerships. How important do you feel it is to support one anothers’ practices in the art industry?

David George: I think Uncertain States and other groups with a similar ethos act as a platform for photographers and artists outside the mainstream gallery system. We’re very keen to support artists and their working practice, which we do through our publications, exhibitions and artist talks.

Uncertain States is admittedly about providing a platform for social issues such as politics, religion and personal identity, how are these issues represented by the artists included in the exhibition? 

David George: It is obviously quite difficult to represent these issues when all the images are taken out of their context. Hopefully people seeing the exhibition in Brighton will be curious to follow up on the various artists’ websites, and our website, to discover the context in which these images were originally produced.

The Brighton Photo Biennial will run from October 4th until November 2nd, 2014.