A Guide to September 2024 Photography Festivals & Exhibitions

PhMuseum Days, Images Vevey, Foto Tallinn, Landskrona Foto Festival, CRISPR Whisper by Liu Shiyuan at Fotografiska Shanghai, BredaPhoto Festival and Daido Moriyama. A Retrospective at Photo Elysée are among the photography events to visit next month.

PhMuseum Days 2024

Bologna, Italy / 12 September - 15 September

The chosen theme is CLOSER: we live in an era in which it is not possible to imagine any objective detachment between us and reality. Observation itself touches and changes things, every story is contamination. The works on show do not attempt to achieve an impossible neutrality, but accept the partiality that comes from looking closely. They make intimacy their strength: in interpersonal relationships as much as in that with the territory, with history, and with living beings. An invitation to open up, to share, to observe things more carefully, beyond prejudices and stereotypes. Centered on this theme, the fourth edition of PhMuseum Days, the international photography festival curated and organized by PhMuseum, returns to Bologna at DumBO's Spazio Bianco and other venues around the city.

Exhibited artists include Kush Kukreja, Mahalia Taje Giotto, Camilla de Maffei, Taysir Batniji, Utu-Tuuli Jussila, Matylda Niżegorodcew, David De Beyter, Beatriz de Souza Lima, Tara Laure Claire Sood, Rita Puig-Serra, Beatriz de Souza Lima, Thomas Mailaender, Pacifico Silano, Emma Sarpaniemi.

The wide festival program offers guided tours with artists, round table discussions, talks, workshops with Walter Costa and Atelier Tatanka, screenings, parties, and more. In addition, the Photobook Hub is a space entirely dedicated to independent photobooks, bringing together a selection of international and Italian publishers who will be presenting their titles, with book launches and talks being part of the main program. Among the publishers are Départ Pour L'Image, Witty Books, Artphilein Editions, Safelight Paper, Giostre Edizioni, Havaiana Papers + Tiratura, and RVM HUB.

Discover the full program on PhMuseum Days' website.

Images Vevey 2024

Vevey, Switzerland / 7 September - 29 September

The Biennale returns for three weeks with this year’s topic (dis)connected, creating links between a certain nostalgia for the past and curiosity about an uncertain future. The theme explores one of the major issues of our time – the great divide created by digital technologies between past and present. With this in mind, some fifty national and international photographic projects will be presented, playing on the feelings of connection and disconnection between tangible reality and digital fantasy. Indoors and outdoors, throughout the city of Vevey, artistic proposals play on the feeling of connection and disconnection between tangible reality and digital fantasy.

Among the exhibited artists are Farah Al Qasimi, Lisa Barnard, Beni Bischof, Tamara Janes and Natalia Funariu, Madison Bycroft, Sarah Carp, Edson Chagas, Carlos Garaicoa, Sabine Hess and Nicolas Polli, Amandine Kuhlmann, Sasha Kurmaz, Vuyo Mabheka, Zosia Promińska and more.

Find out more about the festival's program on their website.

Foto Tallinn 2024

Tallinn, Estonia / 6 September - 8 September

Organised collaboratively by Foto Tallinn, Estonian Contemporary Art Development Center, Kai Art Center, and the Estonian Union of Photography Artists, the fair offers international galleries, artists working with the medium of photography and project spaces a platform for collaboration, meetings and discussions. At the fair, exhibiting artists, collectives, galleries and project spaces can introduce and sell the selected works to a diverse audience and grow their network of professional contacts. The program includes meetings with artists, panel discussions and book launches. In addition, the fair will feature special events for (prospective) art collectors, curators and professionals working in the field of photography, and curated tours arranged during the fair days. 

Discover more on their website.

Landskrona Foto Festival 2024

Landskrona, Sweden / 6 September - 22 September

Once every other year the little city of Landskrona in Skåne is transformed into a teeming metropolis of photography, making it become a part of the city environment. This year's exhibited artists include Shiraz Bayjoo, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, Joy Gregory, Miki Nitadori, Yvon Ngassam, Greta Alfaro, Charlotte Yonga, Thierry Ardouin, Alfredo Blasquez, Federico Estol, Chloé Milos Azzopardi, Donja Nasseri, Giovanna Petrocchi, Sofia Runarsdotter, Clare Strand, Leonard Suryajaya and Chuxun Ran.

Plus, the Photobook Days have been a natural and important part of Landskrona Fotofestival since 2014. The event includes three days with a focus on photobooks, exhibitions, a fair with Swedish and international publishers, book signings, Pecha Kucha, Landskrona Foto & Breadfield Dummy Award, international guest lecturers and publishers who present and talk about their work and more.

The festival includes also portfolio reviews with experts such as Pierre Bessard, Nathalie Chapuis, Ilaria Campioli, Pål Henrik Ekern, Henna Harri, Pauline Koffi Vandet, Catlin Langford, Tanvi Mishra, NEVVEN, Amila Puzić, Arianna Rinaldo, Lisa Springer, Marta Szymanska, Anna Tellgren and Rasmus Vasli. In addition, during the festival’s opening weekend, visitors have the opportunity to be photographed using the wet plate technique by photographer Hans Jonsson and get a unique portrait of themselves to take home.

Visit Landskrona Foto Festival's website to discover more.

CRISPR Whisper by Liu Shiyuan at Fotografiska Shanghai

Shanghai, China / 5 July - 7 October

Spanning photography, video, text, spatial installations, and stage plays, Liu Shiyuan's artistic practice reveals a profound exploration and interrogation of the intricate interplay between images and narratives. CRISPR Whisper brings the five series artworks from the artist’s earlier creation to the latest works. Within the multi-layered chaotic arena she constructs, we are invited not only to re-examine how images shape perceptions and implicit biases but also to delve into the multifaceted meanings and latent attributes of these images in contemporary society.

Discover more on Fotografiska's website.

BredaPhoto Festival 2024

Breda, Netherlands / 13 September - 3 November

BredaPhoto Festival returns with this year's theme Journeys, meant as a metaphor for life-changing development. Whether it is a psychological quest for one’s own identity, or an physical journey in search of freedom, it is these and other stories that fill out the eleventh edition of the festival. Among the featured artists are Rosângela Rennó, Tina Farifteh and Mounir Raji. Besides these first three names, the exhibition program includes international photographers and artists as well as ten young talents participating in the BredaPhoto International Talent Programme, presenting a wide range of work, from documentary photography to interdisciplinary installations and video works. In addition, activities in the fields of performing arts, literature, heritage and film will take place around the theme of Journeys.

Find out more about the festival's program on their website.

Daido Moriyama. A Retrospective at Photo Elysée

Lausanne, Switzerland / 6 September - 23 February

This retrospective, produced by the Instituto Moreira Salles (Sao Paulo, Brazil), will be making a stopover in Switzerland after showing in Berlin and London. It traces Moriyama’s artistic path, spanning his works for Japanese magazines, his challenging of photojournalism, his contribution to the Provoke generation, and the radical proposition summarised by the photobook Farewell Photography. During the sixty years of his career, Daido Moriyama definitively altered our perception of photography. He used his camera to document his immediate surroundings and to visually explore post-war society in Japan. But he also challenged the very nature of photography itself.  His incomparable visual language is as highly acclaimed as his numerous publications, which are at the heart of his work. 

Visit Photo Elysée's website to find out more.

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Also open this month:

Unseen Amsterdam 2024 / Amsterdam, Netherlands / 19 September - 22 September

Unseen is an art fair dedicated to the latest developments in contemporary photography, making them available to the public. Amongst its 65 exhibitors are established international photography and contemporary art galleries, as well as young up and coming initiatives.

Fotobokfestival Oslo 2024 / Oslo, Norway / 6 September - 15 September

Established by Forbundet Frie Fotografer (FFF) in 2009, and curated by Marte Aas and Line Bøhmer Løkken, Fotobokfestival Oslo is an annual event that aims to explore the photo book as an artistic medium and phenomenon. It aims to delve into its subversive potential and speculate on its place in the future.

Biennale Photo Mulhouse 2024 / Mulhouse, France / 13 September - 13 October

Under the artistic direction of Anne Immelé and guest curators, the 6th edition of the MBP will take place with opening days and encounters on June 8 in Thann and September 13, 14 and 15 in the rest of the venues. This year, the Biennale is inviting contemporary photographers to offer their vision of a world that has become impossible to live in for certain species and to explore possible and dreamed worlds for the future. Lucid and exploratory, the program takes a poetic approach to the world in the age of the Anthropocene.

Filter Photo Festival 2024 / Chicago, United States / 18 September - 21 September

Taking place at the Columbia College Chicago Student Center, the festival offers workshops, lectures, artist talks, and portfolio reviews. Additionally, exhibitions will be hosted at Filter Space gallery in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood.