A Guide to October 2025 Photography Festivals & Exhibitions

Photobook Mania, Encontros Da Imagem, OKO Foto Festival Bohinj, Fotodoks, Le Sale ka Kgotso by Lebohang Kganye at Fotografiska Berlin, Oslo Negativ Fotofestival, and La Nuu are among the photography events to visit next month.

Photobook Mania 2025

Bologna, Italy / 18 October - 19 October

PhMuseum is launching Photobook Mania, a new, free biennial event dedicated to the photographic book, taking place at Serra Madre in Bologna. The festival aims to become an international reference point for independent photographic publishing by hosting over twenty international publishers. This event is part of a new programming schedule, alternating with the PhMuseum Days festival, to broaden the promotion of contemporary photographic culture.

The wide program includes a series of talks with artists and professionals, two main exhibitions, and the Dummy Deep Dive workshop led by American photographer and writer Aaron Schuman, aimed at photographers and artists who want to turn their work into a book. Titled Dummies and Books from FOLIO 2024/25 Photobook Making Masterclass, the first exhibition presents the photobook dummies developed during the fifth edition of the masterclass dedicated to the production of book prototypes. The second exhibition is dedicated to the PhMuseum 2025 Photobook Award, an award that showcases 30 photobook projects received through the first edition of the open call. The prize recipient will be announced during the event on Saturday, the 18th at 6.30pm, and will be awarded a publication with PhMuseum and a presence at PhMuseum Days 2026.

Additionally, on Saturday, at 6 pm, the first issue of PhMuseum's print magazine will be presented as part of a rich program of presentations attended by authors.

Read more about the event and check the full list of publishers on PhMuseum's website.

Encontros Da Imagem 2025

Braga, Portugal / 18 September - 2 November

Under the motto Manifestação de Interesse (Declaration of Interest) and the artistic direction of Vítor Nieves, the festival is spread across more than 35 venues and organised around three curatorial themes: Argumentários (Arguments), Dissidências (Dissidences), and Transições (Transitions). While photography remains at the centre of the programme, this 35th edition expands to other contemporary languages, integrating cinema, performance, installation, and video art, in a celebration of the multiple forms of visual expression today.

In addition to the exhibitions, the programme includes educational activities, portfolio reviews, talks, projections, and cinema. Among the featured artists are Teresa Freitas, Pierpaolo Mittica, Matevž Čebašek, Gérald Bloncourt, Carlos Folgoso, Tiago Casanova, Nastassja Nefjodov, Céu Guarda, Fabio Magara, Stefanos Paikos, Mauro Silva, Helena Almeida, Inês Moura, Gil Raro, Miguel De, Sergio Marey, and more.

Find out more on their website.

OKO Foto Festival Bohinj

Bohinj, Slovenia / 16 October - 19 October

Located in Julian Alps and Triglav National Park, the new Slovenian festival combines documentary photography with reflection on ethics, nature conservation, sustainability, and the human impact on the environment. OKO Festival invites the public to be part of the event and inspire others to protect the environment and connect more deeply with nature.

The festival program includes exhibitions, projections, a three-day workshop on conservation photography for transformation and connection, and a workshop introducing participants to a historical photographic technique developed in 1851, through artisanal and meditative practice. Additionally, the event include a photo tour under the name Zajamniki Through the Eyes of Autumn, leading visitors to one of Bohinj’s most enchanting alpine pastures, nestled in the heart of Triglav National Park—Zajamniki.

Discover more about the event on OKO Festival's website.

Fotodoks 2025

Munich, Germany / 9 October - 2 November

Themed Long Time No See, the event delves into how the past is remembered and reinterpreted through contemporary documentary photography. Centered around a group exhibition of 10 international artists, this year's edition will be uniquely hosted in a former 1941 air raid shelter in Munich, now a cultural platform that positions itself at the intersection of architecture, photography, and sculpture. The exhibition is complemented by a three-day festival program filled with artist talks, guided tours, and workshops.

Collectively curated by photographers, the festival aims to present a broad range of documentary practices, and the main exhibition will remain on view for an extended period beyond the festival weekend. This year’s participating artists are Sander Coers, Arash Fayez, Calvin Hein, Thero Makepe, Edgar Martins, Yun Ping Li, Eva Rivas Bao, Sarah Sullivan, Anya Tsaruk, and Eva Vei.

Learn more about the event on their website.

Le Sale ka Kgotso by Lebohang Kganye at Fotografiska Berlin

Berlin, Germany / 12 September - 25 January

Created especially for this exhibition, Le Sale ka Kgotso invites the public into a haunted architecture where language, history, and memory slip, overlap, and refuse resolution. The work is centered around a life-sized, spectral recreation of a post-apartheid South African RDP house and a Sesotho phrase for "stay in peace" that, when mispronounced, invokes a malevolent spirit. By deliberately blurring fact and fiction and using familial memory as a lens to scrutinize national myth, Kganye creates a non-nostalgic and uncanny installation that speaks to the unresolved present, where homes and histories are revealed to be as haunted and double-edged as language itself.

Oslo Negativ Fotofestival 2025

Oslo, Norway / 11 October - 26 October

A collaboration between the Møllersamlingen and the Preus Museum now in its fifth year, the Oslo Negativ Fotofestival continues its tradition of breathing new life into empty buildings. This coming October, the festival will take over the former National Gallery for three weekends, filling its iconic halls and previously inaccessible rooms on the ground and first floors with photography. The event offers the public a chance to meet photographers and view a diverse range of documentary, art, and fashion photography from Norway and abroad. The program includes daily artist talks and panel discussions, as well as lectures and courses. This annual event is a collaboration between the Møllersamlingen and the Preus Museum.

Ana Brankovic and Peggy Kleiber at Photoforum Pasquart

Biel/Bienne, Switzerland / 21 September - 30 November

Photoforum invites you to the opening of their final exhibition cycle of the year, featuring Belonging As A Strange Feeling by Ana Brankovic and De L’Ombre À La Lumière by Peggy Kleiber. Both artists explore questions of memory, identity, and representation in their own ways, and are part of the Swiss Photomonth.

Brankovic explores identity, memory, and diaspora through an immersive mix of photography, video, sound, and installation. Drawing on her personal experience within the ex-Yugoslav diaspora, she combines autofiction, documentary material, and AI-generated images to challenge dominant narratives about migration and belonging. Marking the tenth anniversary of her passing, the exhibition De L’Ombre À La Lumière is the first to be dedicated to photographer Peggy Kleiber (1940–2015) in the region where she lived. The show unveils her recently discovered archive of 15,000 negatives, which capture a wide range of subjects from intimate family life and scenes in Biel to workers' movements in Italy and global travels. Kleiber's quiet yet powerful images are celebrated for revealing the overlap between personal and political histories, transforming a private archive into a form of collective memory.

Find out more about the exhibitions on Photoforum Pasquart's website.

La Nuu 2025

Rubí, Spain / 1 October - 31 October

La Nuu Festival returns with its 11th edition, delving into the theme All Tomorrow's Screens and transforming the city into a museum open to all, where the link between culture and territory is made tangible. This title, a tribute to The Velvet Underground and the writer Antón Patiño, is presented as both a "warning to navigators" and a concept "full of promise for the future." Rather than adopting a simple technophobic or technophilic stance, the theme calls for a conscious effort to learn how to look again, advocating for a "visual democracy" and a "creative resistance of the gaze." The curated works will feature photographers and artists who reflect on the dangers of our addiction to a narrow and totalitarian visual regime, while also pointing toward new paths of creative escape from the "optical hegemony" of images and their alienating effects.

Among the featured artists are Xavi Bou, Carles Camps Mundó, Cecília Coca, Joan Teixidor, Cristobal Ascencio, Amandine Kuhlmann, Vanessa Pey, Alexander Binder, Tatu Gustafsson, Chloe Azzopardi, FSA Archives, Katrick Koening, and Sarker Protick.

Discover more on the festival's website.

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Also open this month:

SEEEU 2025 - Europe Photo Month Tokyo / Tokyo, Japan / 23 October - 23 November

Curated by Mutsuko Ota and Kim Boske, with Sergej Grigorjev as festival producer, SEEEU is dedicated to forging connections between the artistic communities of Japan and Europe. The festival facilitates this exchange through a program of networking opportunities, portfolio reviews, and visits to artist studios and cultural institutions. To ensure broad accessibility, all exhibitions and events are free of charge and held in public spaces.

Fotografica Bergamo Festival / Bergamo, Italy / 11 October - 9 November

The fifth edition of the Fotografica Bergamo Festival, titled As Brave As We Can, explores the theme of courage through contemporary photography. Hosted across two historic venues in Bergamo, the festival will present thirteen exhibitions from internationally renowned artists, alongside conferences and events. It aims to present photography as a powerful testimony to both heroic acts and the daily resilience of individuals confronting adversity, offering thought-provoking perspectives on what it means to be courageous.

Gen Z. Shaping A New Gaze at Photo Elysée / Lausanne, Switzerland / 19 September - 1 February

In 2025, twenty years after its original emerging artists' showcase, Photo Elysée presents an exhibition featuring over 60 young photographers primarily from Generation Z. The show explores themes important to this generation, such as transforming family ties, body and gender representation, and fluid identities. Through powerful personal narratives that blend into a collective energy, the exhibition offers insight into the concerns of a generation seeking representation and its place in a constantly changing world, where the personal becomes political.