Riga Photography Biennial 2026

The Riga Photography Biennial is an international contemporary art event in Latvia, focusing on the analysis of visual culture and artistic representation.

The Riga Photography Biennial is an international contemporary art event, focusing on the analysis of visual culture and artistic representation. The term 'photography' in the title of the biennial is used as an all-embracing concept encompassing a mixed range of artistic image-making practices that have continued to transform the lexicon of contemporary art in the 21st century.

The biennial covers issues ranging from cultural theory to current socio-political processes in the Baltics and the wider European region. Using the format of an art festival, Riga Photography Biennial attempts to record changes taking place all over the world and invites us to collectively interpret them – something we not only need to see but also imagine whilst translating the complicated and oversaturated contemporary visual language into meaningful relationships between our daily reality, the camera lens, historic material, contemporary art, technologies and the future. How has our understanding of photography and image changed because of digital technologies, and how does it manifest itself in the work of art? For the organisers of the biennial these are important questions to present and analyse, whilst at the same time introducing Latvian audiences to leading works of international art as well as the ideas of prominent art theoreticians presented in the form of symposiums, discussions and publications in parallel with exhibitions and performances. The first Riga Photography Biennial took place in 2016.

This year, from April 16 to July 3, the Riga Photography Biennial 2026 program will take place, featuring an extensive exhibition and educational program and marking a decade-long journey. It thematically examines the phenomenon of self-existence/coexistence in various possible contexts, including the impact of technology on human nature, the relationship between man and nature, as well as the informative code of the contemporary image. For more information: www.rpbiennial.com

Attached publicity images:

1. Nanna Debois Buhl, ‘A Human Computer’, installation, 2020. Photo by David Stjernholm

2. Kristina Õllek, ‘Distorted Hands’, installation, 2017. Photo by Kristina Õllek

3. Saskia Fischer, ‘The Night Gardener’, 2025, super 8 | 2k, 17:30 min. Installation at Drifts gallery (‘Sutemos’), Vilnius. Photo by Laurynas Skeisgiela

4. Māra Brašmane, ‘Self-Portrait’, 1965

5. Priyageetha Dia, ‘Mesh - Prelude to Spectre System’, 2024, Courtesy of the Diriyah Biennale Foundation. Photo by Marco Cappelletti

6. Rūta Kalmuka, from the series ‘Dzen’, 2023–2026

7. Unknown photographer ‘Girl with Birchwood Furniture’, 1920s

8. Ieva Epnere, from the series ‘I wish I could tell you / I wish you could tell me’, 2025