Cape Town Photography Festival returns in September 2026

Cape Town is about to turn into a gathering level for photographers and visible storytellers when the Cape Town Photography Festival returns for its second version in September, Cape {city} Etc stories.

Running from 2 to 26 September 2026, the competition has grown considerably since its launch, with this 12 months’s programme that includes 40 exhibitions and greater than 160 photographers throughout venues all through the town.

The expanded competition can even take pictures past conventional gallery areas, with new areas together with the Castle of Good Hope and Company’s Garden.

At the guts of this 12 months’s competition is a query that feels more and more related in a world flooded with pictures: can images nonetheless be trusted?

Festival Director Heidi Erdmann believes the reply is extra difficult than merely saying sure or no.

‘Photography has long been trusted as evidence, but today images can be easily manipulated, re-contextualised and weaponised.’

Rather than making an attempt to determine one definitive model of the reality, the competition will discover how images affect the way in which folks perceive occasions, communities and the world round them.

Photography strikes into public areas

One of the highlights can be Cape Rhythm: Goema, Klopse & Memory, an outside exhibition within the Company’s Garden inspecting the connection between pictures, Cape Town’s musical traditions and its cultural historical past.

The programme can even characteristic I Witnessed This on the Desmond and Leah Tutu Foundation. Curated by Pippa Hetherington, the exhibition brings collectively photographic views from throughout Africa.

Visitors can even be launched to photographic tales from Reunion Island, providing a wider take a look at visible narratives rising from throughout the Indian Ocean.

For these wanting one thing extra hands-on, PICHA Stock from Nairobi will host workshops targeted on sensible engagement with pictures whereas highlighting the African visible storytelling platform.

The competition’s International Student Photography Exhibition has additionally expanded dramatically. It is now 4 instances bigger than final 12 months and can characteristic rising photographers throughout three venues.

Photography can even take over the Central Library, making native and worldwide work accessible to folks exterior standard gallery settings.

The organisers say the broader programme is designed to encourage audiences to work together with pictures in several methods, fairly than merely strolling via exhibitions.

There can be conversations, workshops, a masterclass, demonstrations, a movie screening and guided pictures walks all through the competition.

For Erdmann, turning into a greater viewer is simply as necessary as understanding pictures itself.

She encourages audiences to look past the {photograph} itself and take into account who created it, why it was made and what may not be seen inside the body.

The competition’s enlargement into areas such because the Castle of Good Hope and Company’s Garden additionally provides audiences the prospect to expertise pictures towards a few of Cape Town’s most recognisable historic settings.

Ultimately, the organisers hope guests go away with a higher curiosity in regards to the pictures they encounter every single day.

‘I hope the festival encourages people to slow down, to look a little longer and to be curious about the stories behind the images.’

The Cape Town Photography Festival runs from 2 to 26 September 2026 at numerous venues throughout Cape Town.

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Picture: Pexels