Circulation(s) Festival Returns to Paris for 16th Edition
The Circulation(s) photo festival, a celebration of young European photography, has made its return to Paris for its 16th edition. This year's event, taking place at the Centquatre-Paris from 21 March to 17 May 2026, presents works by 26 emerging photographers from across Europe. The festival aims to capture the pulse of contemporary European photography, highlighting its intuitions, challenges, and commitments through diverse artistic projects.
Exploring Identity and Conflict Through Lens
Among the featured works, Clodagh O’Leary's series Who Fears to Speak delves into the experiences of children and young people in Republican strongholds of Bogside and Creggan in County Derry. These areas were heavily impacted by the Troubles, with violence from both the British army and local paramilitary groups. Although the conflict largely ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, residual violence persists, influencing the youngest community members and often serving as a recruitment gateway for paramilitary groups.
Davide Degano's Do-li-na explores the intersections of image, memory, and identity in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a region where Italian, Slovenian, Friulian, and German cultures converge. Inspired by his grandmother's concealed Slovenian heritage due to fascist Italianisation policies, Degano questions how archives and images shape what is remembered or erased in cultural narratives.
Queer Expression and Personal Narratives
Dónal Talbot's Becoming examines how subjective experience and identity influence our perception of the world. Drawing on Jack Babuscio's concept of 'gay sensibility,' Talbot portrays queerness as a unique way of seeing and living, marked by social oppression but embracing authenticity beyond societal norms. The project invites viewers to consider identity as a fluid, constantly evolving process.
Ellen Blair's Homemade Undercuts is a tender series that celebrates hair-cutting as an act of solidarity, care, and queer expression within LGBTQIA+ communities. Blair highlights how hairstyles have long been used as tools for assertion, distraction, and subversion of cultural and gender norms, serving as forms of celebration and resistance.
Global Issues and Cultural Reflections
Ruby Wallis's Bloodroot & Foxglove (Fuil Fréamh agus Lus Mór) results from a residency at Lismore Castle Arts in Ireland, collaborating with asylum seekers. Through night walks, Wallis creates spaces for storytelling and reflection on displacement, using plant names as acts of memory and healing on colonised land.
Rafael Roncato's Tropical Trauma Misery Tour is a speculative documentary that critiques the rise of the far right in Brazil, exposing global misinformation strategies. Using staged images and meta-fictional techniques, Roncato constructs a political farce, blurring lines between reality and fiction in the era of populism.
Mythology, Migration, and Environmental Themes
T2i & NouN's Manman Dilo reimagines the Water Mother, a mystical figure from Guyanese folklore, through Afro-futuristic iconography, exploring themes of natural power and water's omnipresence.
Ricardo Tokugawa's work delves into family identity and ancestry as a third-generation Okinawan-Brazilian, using photography to explore evolving traditions and personal questions of home.
Tanguy Muller's Feuillages Rebelles, Pelages Revêches examines human relationships with other life forms through aestheticised subjects like trimmed trees and groomed dogs, reflecting on domestication and control.
Political and Historical Contexts
Olia Koval's Eruption uses forty thousand handmade red-winged beetles to metaphorically represent the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territories, transforming a domestic space into a hostile environment that echoes forced coexistence with conflict.
Mashid Mohadjerin's Riding in Silence & The Crying Dervish is a meditative exploration of family history, migration, and how masculinity is shaped by war, colonialism, and religious ideologies.
Marco Zanella's Mezzogiorno offers an intimate look at southern Italy, capturing landscapes of economic insecurity and unfinished buildings to create a politically conscious visual language.
Focus on Youth and Censored Histories
Marine Billet's Reliées focuses on Generation Z women, documenting their identities through intimate portraits that blend documentary and staged elements to capture inner turmoil and personal growth.
Konstantin Zhukov's Black Carnation Part Three addresses the little-documented history of queer people in Latvia, reclaiming censored narratives from pre-World War II tabloids and Soviet-era erasures.
Sadie Cook & Jo Pawlowska's Everything I Want to Tell You emerges from dialogues on class, illness, immigration, gender, and sexuality, using images as shared spaces to document experiences and project desired worlds.
This festival not only showcases artistic talent but also fosters critical discussions on contemporary European society, making it a must-visit for art enthusiasts and cultural commentators alike.
