FORMAT25 Conflicted

FORMAT International Photography Festival returns in March 2025, transforming the city of Derby into a vibrant showcase of the best photography and lens-based media that represent the theme of Conflicted.

Overview

Established in 2004, the FORMAT International Photography Festival organises a year-round programme of international commissions, open calls, residencies, conferences and collaborations in the UK and internationally and welcomes over 100,000 visitors from all over the world to its biennale.

The festival and off year programmes celebrate the wealth of contemporary photographic practice and feature everything from major conceptual works, participative projects, documentary photography, mobile phone imagery to the archive and all that falls between. We are concerned with what is happening now in the scene and beyond, whilst sharing and contributing to it.

The event is the place to engage with an incredible range of work from new and emerging photographers alongside that of some of the best-known practitioners in the world. It is focused on developing opportunities for audiences to see, debate, develop, contribute and participate in the best of what photography is and can be, through our comprehensive professional practice programmes and a yearly international photography portfolio review.

Since its beginning FORMAT has strived to develop and respond to new ideas in photography and has given each festival a distinct and stimulating theme to reflect these ideas.

Venues include QUAD, 19 Chapel St, Museum of Making, Electric Daisy, W. W. Winters, Small Print, Dubrek gallery, Banks Mill Studios, University of Derby, LCB Depot Leicester, East Meets West (TBC), Dancing Through Time (TBC) and artworks on their website.

Among the featured artists are Felicity Hammond, Jenna Garrett, Christopher Gregory-Rivera, Sujata Setia, Natalie Lo Lai Lai, Thero Makepe, John Blakemore, Francis Augusto, W. W. Winters, Jordan Baseman, Alicia Bruce, Associazione La Casa della Memoria Impresa Sociale, Michael Ormerod, Anton Shevelov, Thana Faroq, Alena Grom, Artem Humilevskyi, Evgeny Maloletka, Taras Bychko, Lesia Maruschak, Maxim Dondyuk, Mykhaylo Palinchak, Olena Tytarenko, Roman Pyatkovka, Sergey Melnitchenko, Anton Shevelov, Babeworld, and Artem Novatsky.