A Guide to September 2025 Photography Festivals & Exhibitions
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Published13 Aug 2025
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Author
Verzasca Foto Festival, SI Fest, V3 Model Collapse by Felicity Hammond at The Photographers' Gallery, JIPFest, Yeast Photo Festival, Crossings: Photography From The Indian Subcontinent at Rijksmuseum are among the photography events to visit next month.
Verzasca Foto Festival 2025
Verzasca, Switzerland / 3 September - 7 September
Set in the Alpine valley, the Verzasca Foto Festival is an annual event where human encounters unfold among ancient stones, larch and chestnut forests, new faces, and cherished memories. The 12th edition is centered on the theme Bodies Of Water, exploring water as both a physical force and a metaphor for climate justice and fluid identities through a main exhibition featuring international artists such as Yann Gross, David Ụzochukwu, Cansu Yıldıran, Claudia Amatruda, Luis Cobelo, Emilio Nasser, Laurence Kubski, Miguel Hahn and Jan Christoph Hartung, Sara Munari, Jana Hartmann, Alice Pallot, Matthieu Gafsou, Cristobal Ascencio, Marta Panzeri, Katja Loher, and Javier Cerrada. Beyond its central exhibition, the festival features works by Rhiannon Adam, Aline Bovard Rudaz, Camilla Marrese, and Gabriele Chiapparini, who were selected through the annual open call. Another key initiative is the Artistic Residencies program, which invites photographers like Mayssa Khoury and Sumi Anjuman to live in the valley and create new work inspired by the territory, fostering rich cultural exchange. This ecosystem is further supported by Casa Azul, a year-round creative hub that hosts exhibitions and serves as a welcoming space for encounters, solidifying the festival's role as a place where art builds community and no one is ever just a spectator.
Among the main activities are guided tours, presentations, live music, encounters between artists and the local community, and projections, including a screening featuring the shortlisted projects from the PhMuseum 2025 Photography Grant and taking place during the opening night on Wednesday 3 September.
Learn more on the Verzasca Foto Festival's website.
SI Fest 2025
Savignano sul Rubicone, Italy / 12 September - 28 September
SI Fest returns to Savignano sul Rubicone with its 34th edition under the theme Visual Geographies. The festival brings photography that chronicles the fractures of the present-from conflicts to environmental crises-through the eyes of major international authors. Artists include Hashem Shakeri documenting life in Afghanistan, Ragnar Axelsson capturing the melting Arctic ice, Spandita Malik empowering female survivors of violence, and Taysir Batniji investigating themes of exile and loss. The program is further enriched by a collective exhibition on the Romagna flood and two significant tributes to photographer Marco Pesaresi. The wide program of events also includes meetings, guide tours, portfolio readings, and educational activities designed to foster a complex and imaginative dialogue about our contemporary world.
Read more about the exhibition program on their website.
V3 Model Collapse by Felicity Hammond at The Photographers' Gallery
London, United Kingdom / 27 June - 28 September
Artist Felicity Hammond unveils V3: Model Collapse, the third chapter of her ambitious four-part project Variations, which explores the entangled relationship between photography, artificial intelligence, and material extraction. In this evolving installation, Hammond investigates how digital images are shaped by both geological mining and data mining, tracing the journey from raw mineral to screen-based pixel. The work draws on data and images gathered from earlier iterations in Brighton and Derby, feeding them back into the system much like AI reuses and reshapes existing information. The exhibition invites viewers to engage with these machine-made fictions and consider the broader implications of AI on image-making today. An artist talk will take place on 12 September, where Hammond will be in conversation with curator Joanna Zylinska, offering deeper insight into the conceptual and technical layers of this new work.
The exhibition runs until 28 September. Learn more on their website.
JIPFest 2025
Jakarta, Indonesia / 12 September - 21 September
This year’s theme, Coexistence, offers a timely and necessary opportunity to reflect on how deeply technology has become embedded in the fabric of our lives. More than a mere tool, technology now shapes our perceptions, relationships, and even our sense of identity. It influences how communities form, how power is distributed, and how memory and meaning are constructed in both digital and physical realms. The theme encourages critical engagement, not only to observe how technology is used, but also to question who controls it, who is included or excluded, and how we might resist its dehumanizing potential. At the same time, it opens the door to imagining a more equitable and empathetic future, where humans and technology can evolve together without sacrificing the essence of what makes us human.
Featured artists are Adlun Fiqri, Amina Kadous, Angela Rincon, Daisy Yang, Danielle Ezzo, Ian Teh, Joanne Pang, Kadir van Lohuizen, Kenji Chiga, Lê Nguyên Phương, Mackenzie Calle, Mai Nguyên Anh, Marco Garro Pardo, Marvin Tang, Muhammad Fadli, Nikita Teryoshin, Reza Saifullah and Riska Munaw, Sheung Yiuarah, Rio Surya Prasetia, Woong Soak Teng, and Yoese Mariam.
Full details on the schedule and venue will be announced soon on their website.
Yeast Photo Festival 2025
Matino, Italy / 25 September - 9 November
The 4th edition of the Yeast Photo Festival delves into the theme (N)ever Enough, critically examining the stark contrast between the overwhelming abundance in our modern food systems and the profound scarcity and hidden costs impacting our climate and society. This exploration aligns with the festival's core mission of using photography as a medium for cultural ferment and fostering a renewed relationship between humanity, food, and the environment. By showcasing works that bridge artistic innovation with culinary tradition, the festival aims to inspire positive new scenarios and reaffirming its guiding principle that food is identity.
Keep posted on the new edition on their website.
Crossings: Photography From The Indian Subcontinent at Rijksmuseum
Amsterdam, Netherlands / 4 July - 12 October
The exhibition presents a dialogue between 19th-century British colonial photography and contemporary work by the French-Sri Lankan artist Vasantha Yogananthan, who builds on the rich photographic tradition that has developed in the Indian subcontinent. The exhibition presents a selection of images from Yogananthan’s series A Myth of Two Souls. For this project, he made 13 trips to India, Nepal and Sri Lanka to explore the ways in which ancient stories, myths and traditions continue into the present day. The series depicts scenes from the Ramayana, the celebrated Hindu epic symbolising the struggle between good and evil. Written around 300 BCE, it tells the story of the exiled prince Rama and his wife Sita, who is kidnapped and held captive by the demon Ravana. In the end, Sita regains her freedom, but only after a long and bloody struggle. In his personal interpretation of the epic, Yogananthan uses old photographic techniques such as colouring prints by hand.
Discover more on the museum's website.
BOoks – Bologna Art Books Festival
Bologna, Italy / 26 September - 28 September
Curated by Danilo Montanari and Lorenzo Balbi, BOoks is an art book festival held at MAMbo, the Museum of Modern Art in Bologna, Italy. Building on the legacy of Artelibro and FLAT, it aims to connect artists and collectors through the medium of books with a market-oriented focus. The third edition hosts 36 international exhibitors and presents four special exhibitions dedicated to Mario Diacono, Franco Guerzoni, Mario Giacomelli, and Gianni Emilio-Simonetti. The program features talks with prominent figures from major Italian museums and art fairs. Additionally, new this year is a section dedicated to students from the Academy of Fine Arts, with a prize for the best editorial project awarded by Danilo Montanari Editore and supported by Banca di Bologna.
Find out more on MAMbo's website.
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Also open this month:
Grenze-Arsenali Fotografici Festival 2025 / Verona, Italy / 19 September - 21 October
Curated by artistic directors Simone Azzoni and Francesca Marra along with Erik Kessels, the eighth edition of the Grenze–Arsenali Fotografici Festival delves into the theme of Anfällig (frail/vulnerable). The festival investigates the beauty within weakness, imperfection, and instability, aiming to build a permanent and recognizable community through participation. Its main exhibition features the work of director Pedro Almodóvar, complemented by other international artists including Katarina Marković, Dario Mitidieri, Alfio Tommasini, Nuno Alexandre Serrão, Frédérique Dimarco, Tianyu Wang, Florine Thiebaud, and Emanuela Cherchi. The event also offers a variety of activities such as workshops, portfolio reviews, children's workshops, book presentations, screenings, and meetings with the artists.
Festival de Fotografia de Paranapiacaba 2025 / Paranapiacaba, Brazil / 13 September - 14 September
Since its 2018 debut in the historic village of Paranapiacaba, the festival has established itself as a vital meeting point for national and international photographers. Based on issues related to Education, Human Rights, and the Environment, the event uses photography as a tool for visual literacy and social dialogue. Through a diverse program of exhibitions, workshops, debates, and portfolio readings, it is dedicated to fostering critical thinking and showcasing a plurality of Brazilian voices, all while aiming to build a more democratic, tolerant, and socially just world.
Curated by Ilaria Campioli, the exhibition takes inspiration from Luigi Ghirri's influential 1989-90 lessons to explore the dynamic role of photography in education and creative practice. The exhibition weaves together three distinct threads: Ghirri's own work from his teaching years, a contemporary investigation by artists Luca Capuano and Stefano Graziani into Ghirri's pedagogical "assignments," and a rare collection of historical academic photographs that reveal the medium's practical use in schools. By connecting Ghirri's legacy to contemporary artistic practice and historical archives, the exhibition offers a multi-layered reflection on how images function as active tools for learning, mediation, and the creation of knowledge.
