May Festivals Guide

Our monthly festival round-up offers an overview of what photography events will be in the spotlight during the coming month. For May, we feature both Riga and Krakow Photomonth, CONTACT Photography Festival, PhotOn, ImageSingulières, and Photo London.

Our monthly festival round-up offers an overview of what photography events will be in the spotlight during the coming month. For May, we feature both Riga and Krakow Photomonth, CONTACT Photography Festival, PhotOn, ImageSingulières, and Photo London.

Riga Photomonth (Riga, Latvia) May 2 - June 16

Held every two years throughout cultural institutions across the Latvian capital, Riga Photomonth is committed to the promotion and dissemination of photography from the northern and eastern regions of Europe. In this second edition of the festival, the underlying theme is Territories, Borders and Check-Points, with featured contributions coming from such internationally-acclaimed photographers as JH Engström, Erik Kessels, Igor Samolet, and Gordon MacDonald. A wide range of workshops designed for emerging and mid-career artists are also available, and the public program SELF PUBLISH RIGA will present a series of events dedicated to photobooks and the world of self-publishing.

CONTACT Photography Festival (Toronto, Canada) May 1 - 31

CONTACT Photography Festival is the largestevent of its kind in the world. Throughout the entire month of May, the city ofToronto will be consumed by wall to wall photography. Major museums,independent galleries, and other cultural spaces will present an extensiveprogram of Primary Exhibitions and Public Installations displaying the work ofboth international and local artists. The imagery will reflect upon themost important issues facing our society today, and the history of thephotographic medium. Exhibitionhighlights include Object Relations (Thomas Ruff), Refugees in a StateApartment (Jens Ullrich), Blue Sky Days: A Drone’s Eye View, (PHM 2015 Grantwinner Tomas van Houtryve), and Post Tohoku (Michel Huneault).

Photo London (London, UK) May 19 - 22

Combining a comprehensive public programwith exhibitions from over 80 of the most influential galleries in the world,Photo London has emerged as a significant event on the photography calendar.This year’s timetable of talks, seminars and conferences has been curated by formerDirector of Exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, William A.Ewing – headline speakers include Edward Burtynsky, Hans Ulrich Obrist, KatyGrannan, Graham Nash, Nadav Kander, Alec Soth, and Cheryl Newman. In the fairitself, visitors can enjoy the work of many leading photographers, and, in anew section introduced this year, the LUMA Foundation will present a number ofspecially-commissioned exhibitions from the private collections of HamiltonsGallery, the Wilson Centre for Photography, and the Multimedia Art Museum,Moscow.

PhotOn (Valencia, Spain) The month of May

Founded in 2011 by a group ofphotojournalists working in Valencia, PhotOn Festival supports and promotes thework of emerging photographers who use their medium as a tool to encourage socialchange. The principal exhibitions this year are Europe's Borders (5W Collective),Flashes in the Dark (Ricard G. Vilanova), The Human Cost of Agrotoxins (PabloErnesto Piovano), Refugees (Marco Risovnik and Georgi Licovsky), and Fishshot(Javier Corso, winner of Photon Festival Grant 2015).

Krakow Photomonth (Krakow, Poland) May 12 - June 12

In this 14th edition of Krakow Photomonth,the main series of exhibitions will together address the concept of “crisis”,with a particular focus on the global and political problems confronting modernhumanity. “The point of departure for this year's festival was the convictionthat crisis is not a transitional phase or an anomaly any more, but acharacteristic trait of everyday life, a permanent state with which we mustcope in practically all spheres of our lives” says festival curator and socialanthropologist Lars Willumeit. Paul Graham, Yann Mingard, Aneta Grzeszykowska,and PHM 2014 Grant winner Max Pinckers are among the featured artists.

ImageSingulières (Sète, France) May 4 - 22

Documentary photography takes center stageat Images Singulières. The festival’s exhibitions and screenings are this year tobe held in both traditional white-cube gallery spaces, and a number of unique, unconventionalcultural venues. Four Chilean artists (Tomás Quiroga, Nicolas Wormull, PaulaLópez-Droguett and Cristóbal Olivares) came together in the flagshipartist-in-residency program, and they will present a collaborative series producedin partnership with FIFV (Valparaíso International Photography Festival). Inother featured events, the Centre Régional d’Art Contemporain will explorethe photography of Guillaume Herbaut, and the Chais des Moulins pays homage tothe work of prominent Spanish photographers who have contributed to the evolutionof Agence VU’.