A Guide to April 2025 Photography Festivals & Exhibitions

VA-M Festival, Fotografia Europea, Circulation(s), EXPOSED Torino Foto Festival, Cash Me Online by Amandine Kuhlmann at MEP, and Kyotographie are among the photography events to visit next month.

VA-M Festival 2025

Ferrara, Italy / 31 March - 23 April

PhMuseum and HPO invited visual artists to offer their interpretation of Vivere A-Metropolitano, literally A-Metropolitan Living, meant as a way to explore the architecture, landscapes and ideas of provincial areas, giving a new meaning to those places protected by low density that do not correspond to and do not aspire to the dimension of the metropolis. Collectively shaping an oblique, existential vision of what provincial areas can be, works of artists Álvaro Muñoz, Ilias Lois, Alba Ruiz Lafuente, Aaron Schuman, Alexandra Riba, and Jinyong Lian will be exhibited in six public billboards (6x3 meters) curated by PhMuseum, between Ferrara and some municipalities of the Po Delta Park, aimed to celebrate perceived emptiness and boredom as spaces rich with possibilities, and fertile grounds for imagination.

Exploring themes such as architecture, ideas, and landscapes within the province, the festival's program features workshops, exhibitions, talks, and book presentations. Plus, on Saturday 5 March, at 11am, PhMuseum will present the open call results in a talk alongside HPO, Zattere, Zeno Franchini, and Basso Profilo.

Learn more on VA-M's website.

Fotografia Europea 2025

Reggio Emilia, Italy / 24 April - 8 June

Under the artistic direction of Tim Clark, Walter Guadagnini, and Luce Lebart, Fotografia Europea turns 20 and celebrates this important milestone by exploring the theme of Being Twenty, as a reflection on that precise period of life that most of all seems to open the doors wide to infinite possibilities. Exhibitions include A Retrospective by Daido Moriyama, organized by Instituto Moreira Salles and curated by Thyago Nogueira, as well as the exhibition Luigi Ghirri. Lezioni Di Fotografia seeking to revisit Ghirri’s lessons from a new perspective. Exhibiting artists also include Viviane Sassen, Andy Sewell, Claudio Majorana, Vinca Petersen, Jessica Ingram, Thaddé Comar, Ghazal Golshiri and Marie Sumalla, Kido Mafon, Toma Gerzha, Karla Hiraldo Voleau, Federica Sasso, Michele Borzoni e Rocco Rorandelli, Matylda Niżegorodcew, Rä di Martino, and more.

Additionally, Fluorescent Adolescent is a photobook exhibition curated by Francesco Colombelli that explores adolescence, a complex and pivotal period of life, in its nuances and contradictions. Women See Many Things is A WeWorld project along the Swahili Coast which intends to give space to the multiple gazes of young women from Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. Plus, curated by Ilaria Campioli and Daniele De Luigi, Unire/Bridging encourages reflection on how images can act as “bridges” and carry out a function of connecting, creating dialogue and bringing people together, as well as caring for the outside world. Artists selected within the open call Giovane Fotografia Italiana | Premio Luigi Ghirri are Erdiola Kanda Mustafaj, Rosa Lacavalla, Daniele Cimaglia and Giuseppe Odore, Sara Lepore, Grace Martella, Davide Sartori, and Serena Radicioli.

Exhibitions and events will be going on until 8 June. Discover more on the festival's website.

Circulation(s) 2025

Paris, France / 5 April - 1 June

Taking place at Centquatre-Paris, a cultural place in eastern Paris, and directed by Fetart collective, the festival offers a wide program of events such as professional weekends centered around portfolio readings and meetings with artists, photo studios, performances, screenings, workshops, and an exhibition at children’s level.

Exhibiting artists are Emeline Ametis, Sama Beydoun, Cendre, Anouk Durocher, Aubane Filée,Giulia Frigieri, Claudia Fuggetti, Jakob Ganselmeier and Ana Zibelnik, Artem Humilevskyi, Tomasz Kawecki, Manuela Lorente, Isabella Madrid, Lesha Pčołka, Lucija Rosc, Ola Skowrońska, Valentin Valette, Tanyu Wang and Wendy Zahibo. Plus, since 2019 the festival has featured a particular emerging European photographic scene as part of its focus. For this 15th edition, the invitation is extended to Lithuania, with the presentation of series by four artists from this territory, including Ieva Baltaduonyte, Agnė Gintalaite, Visvaldas Morkevičius, and Paulius Petraitis.

Discover the full program on their website.

EXPOSED Torino Foto Festival 2025

Turin, Italy / 16 April - 2 June

Organized by the Fondazione per la Cultura Torino, under the artistic direction of Menno Liauw and Salvatore Vitale, EXPOSED Torino Foto Festival reimagines the role of photography in shaping sustainable and critical futures. The new edition's theme is Beneath The Surface, exploring how the physical world connects to the forces that shape our lives. Through a dynamic program of exhibitions, public discussions, and a series of public events, the festival offers a critical space to examine how photography is produced, understood, and mobilized today.

Exhibiting artists are Georges Senga, Gregory Halpern, Valeria Cherchi, Olga Cafiero, Carrie Mae Weems, Sheng Wen-Lo, Lisa Barnard, Paolo Cirio, River Claure, Silvia Rosi and more. Involved institutions include Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti (this year the core hub of the festival), CAMERA Centro Italiano per la Fotografia, Gallerie d'Italia – Torino, Archivio di Stato di Torino, Palazzo Carignano, OGR Torino, and GAM — Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea.

Learn more about the wide program on EXPOSED's website.

Cash Me Online by Amandine Kuhlmann at MEP

Paris, France / 3 April - 18 May

Combining performance and video, Cash Me Online explores social media as a performative space. Paris-based artist Amandine Kuhlmann has designed a fictional character, a hypersexualized alter ego, who operates both online and in public performances. This character adopts glamorous, artificial, or suggestive poses inspired by social media trends, re-enacting the stereotypes that dominate these virtual spaces and exaggerating social expectations. The project features a series of short sequences: “Mukbang” videos—a phenomenon where viewers watch young women consume excessive amounts of food—followed by the wellness advice of the “Clean girl,” a figure promoting a healthy, productive lifestyle fueled by self-help mantras. Kuhlmann's work aims to underscore the impact of social media on the commodification of bodies, particularly women’s bodies, whose societal status remains heavily influenced by these imposed standards. It offers a critical and sarcastic perspective on these constraints, creating space for reflection and, ultimately, liberation.

Kyotographie 2025

Kyoto, Japan / 12 April - 11 May

Co-founded and co-Directed by Lucille Reyboz and Yusuke Nakanishi, Kyotographie International Photography Festival returns in Kyoto, Japan, with its 13th edition bringing together 13 artists from 10 countries to explore the essence of Humanity through photography. This year’s theme reflects on love, empathy, and resilience, illuminating the complexities of human experience. Among the exhibited artists are Pushpamaala N, JR, Graciela Iturbide, Martin Parr, Erik Poitevin, Adam Rouhana, Mao Ishikawa, Latitia Ky, Lee Shulman and Omar Victor Diop, Tamaki Yoshida, Keijiro Kai, Eamonn Doyle, and Hsing-Yu Liu. Activities include the International Portfolio Review brings together leading figures in the field of photography including curators, editors, gallerists, festival directors, publishers, photographers, and professionals in the field of contemporary art.

Discover more on their website.

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Also open this month:

Festival Mirades 2025 / Baix Empordà, Spain / 4 April - 4 May

This 9th edition of the Mirades Festival takes place in different towns of the Baix Empordà: Torroella de Montgrí, La Bisbal d'Empordà, Palafrugell and now Figueres, hosting 15 international and transgenerational views, with the aim to show the need to understand the world from the image and from the collective story. Time, which is revealed in photography as one of its primary working tools, is explored in this edition as a cycle, as a non-linear structure that brings us closer to today's complex world, offering us ways to unravel it. Displayed artists include Cyprien Clément-Delmas, Andrés Solla, Spasi Sohrani, Sergio Belinchón, Manuela Lorente, Jesus Visauta, Jonàs Forchini, Gael del rio and Luca Bani, Vicente Sáez, Pascual Martínez, Águeda Martínez Rojo, Catara Rego, Alba Ruiz, Ignacio Navas, Usue Belandia, Lorena Ruiz, and Pau de la Calle Argelés.

Marius Glauer and Anna Breit at Francisco Carolinum Linz / Linz, Austria / 14 March - 7 July

Both Marius Glauer’s Wait A Minute and Anna Breit’s These Days I Think A Lot About The Days That I Forgot delve into the intricate relationship between photography, memory, and the passage of time. While their approaches differ, both artists utilize the photographic medium to explore how images capture, distort, and reconstruct our understanding of temporality. Glauer investigates the surface as a site of temporal resonance, examining how materiality and display influence our perception of images, while Breit weaves together personal narratives and archival fragments to create a poignant reflection on intergenerational memory and the enduring power of intimate relationships.