FOTO Bali Festival 2025

Nuanu Creative City is proud to announce the launch of the FOTO Bali Festival, International Photography Festival—a significant new addition to Southeast Asia’s cultural calendar.

Overview

FOTO Bali Festival invites lens-based practitioners to take part in a growing regional and international conversation around photography, a tool for art, memory, and social reflection. Set against the richly layered cultural landscape of Bali, the festival offers a curated platform for global exposure, curatorial dialogue, and community connection.

Representing 10 countries across Asia, Europe and the Pacific, 34 artists will showcase their work during a 23-day festival from 26 July to 17 August 2025. Held under the theme LIFE, the Festival serves as a platform for both global and local visual storytellers. Here, the audiences are invited to engage more deeply with the stories we inherit and the futures we imagine. The curated works, including photography projects, photo books and multimedia convey layered narratives of LIFE that reveal the shifting, multidimensional relationships between people, origins, and cultures, and offer multidimensional perspectives.

“The festival is a reminder of the power photography holds when given the space to be seen and experienced as art, rather than being confined to documentation,” said Kelsang Dolma, Director of FOTO Bali Festival. “What stayed with me most was how each artist draws attention to the things we often pass by. Their work carries a quiet immediacy, shaped by memory, grief, ritual, and relationship, that stays with you. At Nuanu Creative City, we’re creating space for that kind of expression, art that doesn’t rush to explain itself but gives us room to reflect and feel.”

Atal Pamo, an aspiring visual artist and photographer from India, captures moments that inspire viewers to celebrate life; I Wayan Ade Saputra, a UI/UX designer and passionate photographer, tells stories of everyday life and the cultural complexities of Balinese life through visual storytelling; Kim Hak, a Cambodian photographer, reinterprets his country’s history, especially from the Khmer Rouge era, through his art; Tomasz Lazar, a Poland-based photographer and lecturer, explores themes of society and the human mind in his work. 

“It’s been incredibly motivating for us,” said Ng Swan Ti and Gatari Surya Kusuma, Curators of FOTO Bali Festival. “Curating hundreds of strong body of works has been extremely challenging, yet we remain grateful. During our curatorial process, we found a number of photographers and artists capturing stories about family in diverse points of views, unveiling personal stories, losing, grieving as well as celebration. This is how we interpret LIFE—family becomes our core of support system—followed by nature, social, and cultural relationships within our life. We hope the selected works will spark reflection yet conversation that  resonates  a cross-connection between Indonesia’s rich ancestral heritage and the escalating global communities.

 Over the course of this 23-day festival, visitors will experience a curated program of events. These include a panel discussion titled Island Perspective; a series of workshops designed to deepen storytelling through the lens without compromising the frame; and an RSVP-only sunset tour across Nuanu Creative City, offering photographers the chance to capture stunning sunset imagery. This festival is truly made for photographers—sharpening both the lens and the quality of the images captured.