A Information To May 2026 Photography Festivals & Exhibitions

Bieler Fototage, Photo London, Hard Copy New York by Aaron Stern at ICP, Fotofestival Lenzburg, (H) by Daniel Martínez at Standard/Deluxe, Sur FotoLibros, and Art Photo Bcn, are among the many pictures occasions to go to subsequent month.

Biel/Bienne, Switzerland / 9 May – 31 May

The new version of Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography facilities on the theme of vulnerability, reimagining it as a shared social and political situation somewhat than a weak spot. Through 4 thematic axes – feminism and physique politics, affective ecologies, migration narratives, and reparative inventive gestures – the competition showcases works that transcend documentation to foster care, resistance, and visible justice. By bringing collectively a various group of worldwide artists, collectives, and activists, this system transforms exhibition venues into important areas for dialogue. Ultimately, the occasion invitations audiences to discover the sensory and demanding potential of pictures, presenting pictures as highly effective instruments for connection, reminiscence, and the reconfiguration of our shared actuality.

Among the exhibiting artists are Annette Boutellier, Dominique Bartels, Hemauer / Keller, Lester Kielstein, Sabine Hess and Nicolas Polli, The Archive of Public Protests, Dominic Nahr, Michel François, Angela Marzullo, Khashayar Javanmardi, Aude Mayer, Lunax, Rafal Milach, Daniel Rihs, Klaus Petrus, and extra.

Find out extra on their website.

London, United Kingdom / 13 May – 17 May

The eleventh version of Photo London marks a major second with its relocation to the historic Olympia in Kensington. This transfer, supported by an expanded footprint inside the Heatherwick Studio-led redevelopment, permits the honest to reimagine its choices by way of new curated sections. Highlights embody Source, which focuses on under-represented artists of serious cultural worth, and the introduction of a devoted artwork movie screening room. The new version maintains a robust worldwide presence, alongside a targeted highlight on South Asian, Central European, and Latin American voices.

The honest additionally continues its dedication to rising and unrepresented expertise by way of the Discovery and Positions sections, the latter of which supplies a platform for artists with out conventional gallery illustration. Beyond the primary exhibition, this system features a publishers’ market and an in depth Talks Programme that includes business leaders reminiscent of Alfredo Jaar and Jill Furmanovsky.

For extra particulars, go to Photo London’s website.

New York, United States / 29 January – 4 May

Hard Copy New York is an expanded iteration of Aaron Stern’s ongoing challenge celebrating the modern use and enduring enchantment of the photocopied picture. Curated by David Campany and Stern, the exhibition brings collectively famend photographers from totally different generations working in abstraction, documentary, artwork, and style pictures. Each has been invited to have examples of their work reinterpreted as photocopies, reasserting pictures’s distinctive capability to supply a democratic and tangible expertise. Featured artists embody Daniel Arnold, David Black, John Divola, Zoë Ghertner, Takashi Homma, Jerry Hsu, Shaniqwa Jarvis, Ari Marcopoulos, Ryan McGinley, Asako Narahashi, Thomas Ruff, Collier Schorr, Stephen Shore, Gray Sorrenti, and Andre D. Wagner.

Moving between intimate and epic scales with topics starting from the diaristic to the photojournalistic, by way of landscapes, portraits, and nonetheless life, Hard Copy New York revitalizes a collective engagement with analog applied sciences and strategies of picture manufacturing.

Read extra on ICP’s website.

Lenzburg, Switzerland / 9 May – 7 June

The biennial Fotofestival Lenzburg transforms the Swiss city into an open-air gallery, integrating modern pictures into the material of every day life. The seventh version, themed Forever Happy, explores the multi-faceted nature of happiness – starting from fleeting private moments to the complexities of societal stress and cultural advertising and marketing. By using sudden public areas in each Lenzburg and Aarau, the competition creates an immersive setting that challenges conventional perceptions of pleasure and encourages important dialogue between artists and the general public.

The program options solo and group exhibitions, together with interactive workshops, portfolio opinions, and photobook corners in native cafés. This strategy strikes pictures past museum partitions, fostering significant exchanges about visible tradition and the human expertise.

Check the competition’s website for extra info.

Innsbruck, Austria / 15 April – 18 July

To commemorate the bicentennial of pictures, Inn Situ presents the work of Maciej Markowicz, who makes use of a cell digital camera obscura to bridge historical optical ideas with modern follow. By reworking a ship and a van into purposeful darkrooms, Markowicz captures large-format, immediately uncovered coloration negatives on chromogenic paper. Each ensuing piece is a singular, unreproducible work that blends the boundaries between pictures, portray, and efficiency, emphasizing the bodily and temporal nature of sunshine.

In conjunction along with his exploration of the area, the artist created works involving Alpine rivers such because the Inn, Lech, or the Alpine Rhine, photographed in Tyrol and Vorarlberg from bridges, which often stay invisible, because the motion of the digital camera blurs every part close by. The sequence of panorama images is supplemented with portraits taken by the artist in public areas in Innsbruck.

Read extra on Photoforum Inn Situ’s website.

Lausanne, Switzerland / 1 May – 24 May

Hydrogen was the primary factor to emerge after the Big Bang. It is the best and lightest of all chemical parts, but it accounts for 90% of all atoms within the universe. It additionally composes the water molecule, protecting practically three-quarters of the Earth’s floor and about the identical proportion of the human physique. In a way, hydrogen types the idea of life. However, it’s additionally used to create probably the most damaging weapon ever made: the hydrogen bomb, wherein a thermonuclear fusion course of much like that of the Sun is recreated, unleashing a damaging pressure far better than that of atomic bombs.

Daniel Martínez’s exhibition, (H), explores the paradoxical situation of a life-giving but brutal particle. An omnipresent however ethereal, polarised however unifying factor. Pointing out broader eventualities of connectedness as an act of resistance in opposition to immediately’s socio-environmental fragmentation.

Find out extra on Standard/Deluxe’s website.

Buenos Aires, Argentina / 28 May – 31 May

Sur FotoLibros is a four-day worldwide gathering in Buenos Aires devoted to the photobook as a major medium for inventive experimentation and visible thought. Organized by the Fundación Alfonso y Luz Castillo – ArtexArte in collaboration with FOLA and Laura Carbonell (Punto de Fuga Bogotá), the occasion goals to be a hub for photographers, publishers, and curators to have interaction in skilled change.

The occasion gives a complete program together with writer showcases and guide displays, talks, workshops, screenings, exhibitions, and panel discussions that includes native and worldwide consultants.

Full particulars on their IG account.

The Hague, Netherlands / 4 April – 23 August

South-African Dutch photographer Farren van Wyk examines the intricate historic ties between South Africa and the Netherlands, specializing in the legacies of colonialism, migration, and apartheid. Born within the closing yr of apartheid and raised within the Netherlands, Van Wyk makes use of the standard visible language of black-and-white pictures to navigate her “coloured” classification and combined id.

By stripping away literal coloration, she redefines the time period “person of color” and develops a private iconography that serves as each a reclamation of her household’s heritage and a celebratory ode to the complexities of combined id.

For extra particulars, go to Fotomuseum Den Haag’s website.

Paris, France / 10 April – 24 May

Black Bricolage brings collectively images, notebooks, and paperwork that bear witness to Black experiences in Europe and past, between 2004 and 2024. Johny Pitts illuminates Afro-European and Afro-diaspora realities which are typically made invisible or poorly represented. His strategy refuses each nostalgia and stereotype, however somewhat favours the bizarre: casual conversations, cafés, neighborhood centres, every day commutes, and dwelling areas.

His work is constructed by way of proximity, listening, and change, within the firm of staff, activists, musicians, educators, college students, and researchers alike. Pitts’s hauntological gaze connects every metropolis he visits to its colonial previous, its historical past, and its current. This isn’t a fowl’s-eye view, however a group of fragments, patiently assembled by way of encounter.

Find out extra on their website.

Barcelona, Spain / 8 May – 10 May

The thirteenth version of Art Photo Bcn will happen on the Disseny Hub Barcelona, bringing collectively artists, galleries, collectors, and pictures professionals. The competition distinguishes itself by fostering experimentation and the fusion of pictures with conceptual artwork, creating an area the place the medium’s position in modern tradition is each celebrated and pushed ahead.

A central function of the competition is the Photobook Market, an area devoted to photographic publishing and limited-edition initiatives. This curated platform brings collectively publishers and authors to showcase rising developments and revolutionary editorial voices. Through a sequence of built-in actions and dialogues, the market encourages direct interplay between creators and the general public, emphasizing the inventive course of behind the photobook as a elementary pillar of latest pictures.

Check their website for extra info.

Montpellier, France / 9 May – 31 May

Les Boutographies is a three-week pictures competition in Montpellier that showcases a various collection of European expertise on the Pavillon Populaire. The occasion incorporates a essential official program alongside Parallèle curated exhibitions and varied off-site occasions at native cultural venues. To improve public engagement, the competition integrates strolling and biking excursions into its programming, making a city-wide expertise that fosters partnerships {and professional} improvement for photographers throughout the area.

Among the exhibited artists within the 2026 version are Alessandro Silverj, Anouchka Renaud-Eck, Hannes Jung, Alexandre Bagdassarian, Cristóbal Ascencio, Marie Lukasiewicz, Pascal Sgro, Ana María Arevalo Gosén, Anne Mocaër, Arthur Marcier, Carolina Arantes, Elena Bulet, Eliot Nasrallah, Julien Fumard, Julius Schreiner, Lionel Jusseret, Natalya Saprunova, and Sofiya Loriashvili.

Read extra on the competition’s website.

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Also open this month:

Dolce Far Niente at Foundry Seoul / Seoul, South Korea / 21 March – 9 May

Drawing inspiration from the Italian notion of “the sweetness of doing nothing,” Dolce Far Niente brings collectively eleven artists from various cultural backgrounds working throughout a variety of media, inviting guests to decelerate and rethink their relationship with time, presence, and goal. Curated in cooperation with Irina Stark, the exhibition is a reminder that there’s profound that means in stillness – and that doing nothing can, in truth, be every part.

The Phair 2026 / Turin, Italy / 22 May – 24 May

By offering equal exhibition areas to main modern galleries, The Phair fosters an natural viewer expertise targeted on photographic and video-based media. This format is complemented by a three-day program of talks, bringing collectively artists, collectors, and professionals to investigate the evolving position of the picture inside inventive, institutional, and industrial landscapes.

Community. Photography and Belonging at Kunstpalast / Turin, Italy / 11 February – 25 May

The exhibition explores the complicated position of pictures in defining, documenting, and difficult the idea of neighborhood. Combining works from the Kunstpalast assortment with worldwide loans, Community. Photography and Belonging examines how the medium can each foster a way of belonging and draw social boundaries throughout political, familial, and social teams. Through a mixture of inventive and utilized views, the exhibition invitations lively public participation, permitting guests to contribute their very own pictures of neighborhood to a dialogue supported by a multi-disciplinary catalog.