October Festivals Guide

Photography festival season continues into October with some exciting offerings: the European Month of Photography Berlin, Lagos Photo Festival, Brighton Photo Biennial, and the Singapore International Photography Festival, among many others, all open their doors in the coming weeks. Read our handy guide to learn all about their exhibitions and supporting programs.

Singapore International Photography Festival (Singapore) October 6 - November 13

The biennial Singapore International Photography Festival provides a platform for emerging Southeast Asian artists to exhibit their work alongside more established, international practitioners at galleries and museums across Singapore. The program of events this year is divided into three components: exhibitions, professional workshops, and outreach projects. The primary shows include Roger Ballen, Southeast Asia Debut; Nicolas Enriquez, The Bloodline; Mariela Sancari, Moisés; Guillaume Hebert, Transient Landscape; Heiko Tiemann, Infliction; Boris Eldagsen, How to Disappear Completely / THE POEMS; Tomasz Gudzowaty, Proof; and Maki Hayashida, The Pacific Tourist. SIPF 2016 will also host a number of fringe activities throughout various institutions and art spaces around the city, each designed to incite and encourage discussion and debate about the medium of photography.

Lagos Photo Festival (Lagos, Nigeria) October 22 - November 21

© Sanne de Wilde, from the series The Island of the Colourblind

LagosPhoto is a month-long celebration of photography that strives to engage the general public with multifaceted stories about Africa. The festival aims to unite both local and international artists through images and series that encapsulate, and reflect upon, identities from across the African continent. In this year’s edition, over 50 exhibitions will explore acts of repetition that shape gender, image, social agency, power and social constructs in contemporary society. The highlights include Sanne de Wilde, The Island of the Colourblind; Patrick Willocq, The Art of Survival; Pep Bonet, Hellbangers; Jenevieve Aken, Monankim; Bruno Morais, Palhetas; and Juno Calypso, Joyce / The Honey. A comprehensive collection of open receptions, discussions, presentations, and workshops completes the program.

European Month of Photography Berlin (Berlin, Germany) October 1 - 31

Every two years since 2004, the European Month of Photography Berlin has been taking over the German capital, showcasing a collection of exhibitions and supporting events that together explore historical and contemporary photography. The jury of EMOP this year has designed a festival program that features 130 photography shows hosted by 120 cultural institutions across Berlin and Potsdam. The formats range from large outdoor installations to major museum expositions and refined solo and group presentations in independent galleries: Photowerk Berlin will showcase the ongoing story How to Disappear Completely by Boris Eldagsen and Katrin Koenning’s illuminating black and white series, Glow; Fotogalerie Friedrichshain will display Danila Tkachenko’s project Restricted Areas which explores the human impulse toward utopia; the Mexican Embassy presents Dance of the Flying Men featuring Kike Arnal; and renowned fine art photographer Andreas Gursky curates an exhibition for the Galerie Sprüth Magers showing the work of his MFA students. It is this variety of perspectives that makes EMOP one of the standout festivals on the photography calendar.

Brighton Photo Biennial (Brighton, UK) October 1 - 30

Brighton Photo Biennial is the leading curated photography festival in the UK, annually presenting a commissioned program of exhibitions and events designed to promote innovative thinking around photography. For this, the seventh edition, BPB has taken the concept ‘Beyond The Bias – Reshaping Image’ as its central subject. “Our theme probes photography’s duality: sometimes authentic, informing and reflective, transgressing the pervasive view; sometimes feeding into the uniformity of photographic visual culture and its influence upon us” say the organizers. The very essence of the festival this year is characterized by three major exhibitions: The Dandy Lion Project which explores global expressions of the Black Dandy phenomenon against the backdrop of contemporary life; Kick Over the Statues, a show co-commissioned by Photoworks and Fabrica that features Ewen Spencer’s celebrated and spontaneous images of youth and music culture; and Reimagine, a collaborative project composed by Olivia Arthur and Bharat Sikka. BPB16 is further enriched by a multifaceted series of live events and digital programming.

Eyes On (Vienna, Austria) October 25 - November 30

Eyes On festival is set once again to present a wide spectrum of photography exhibitions across major museums, independent galleries, temporary art spaces and other cultural venues in the city of Vienna. A number of talks and presentations hosted by prominent industry figures will complement the program, and the festival has also launched a series of portfolio reviews in collaboration with the Month of Photography Bratislava. Selected participants will have the opportunity to build an international network of contacts and show their work to curators, editors, gallery owners, and festival directors in twenty minute one-on-one meetings. The Review will conclude with an open review session during which the experts will look through the gathered works and select the best portfolio. The winner will be invited to present their photographs in Bildrecht GmbH’s exhibition space during Eyes On 2018. There are still a few days left to apply – learn more here.

Buenos Aires Photo (Buenos Aires, Argentina) October 13 - 16

Buenos Aires Photo is the premier art fair dedicated to Latin American photography. Since it opened in 2005, BA Photo has been continually working to promote and develop local photography, creating a forum that annually attracts photographers, curators, journalist, and collectors from around the region. Under the curatorial directorship of Diego Costa Peuser and Francisco Medail, the fair this year has moved into a larger venue that will expand its international scope. PHM curator Nicolas Janowski, Santiago Hafford, Luján Agusti, Hugo Aveta, Jorge Miño, Lena Szankay, Pablo Tapia, and Sub Collective are among the featured artists. The festival will also host Photobook Tijuana, a special print exposition that shines a spotlight on the contemporary production of photobooks in Latin America.

FIFV Festival Internacional de Fotografía Valparaíso (Valparaíso, Chile) October 29 - November 27

The International Photography Festival in Valparaíso is a festival of photographic creation, making it unique in its field. The exhibitions and presentations are all made exclusively to be shown at FIFV, with much of the work produced during the festival itself. In each issue, participating photographers create new series within the framework of residencies and workshops, all with a common theme: to understand the world of Valparaíso. The exhibition highlights include Valparaíso, featuring the work of Claudine Doury, Juan Manuel Castro Prieto, Gilles Favier, Bertrand Meunier, and Paolo Verzone; Muestra de Fotolibros, a display of photobooks taken from the FIFV collection; and La France Vue d´Ici, a show organized in collaboration with ImageSingulières that reflects upon contemporary French society. The supporting public program of events is comprised of a of workshops hosted by Ana Casas Broda, Juan Valbuena, and Dario Coletti; portfolio reviews; and ‘Brigadas Fotográficas’, an initiative that involves photographic collectives developing work around the subject of “horizon”.