The Photoworks festival 2026, themed 'Un/Stable: Lands, Anxieties, Dreams', runs from 2 October until 1 November in Brighton and Hove, UK, with Photo Fringe running from 2-31 October. The festival pushes contemporary photography beyond traditional gallery walls and passive viewing, examining how human identity, memory and physical environments overlap. It positions photography not just as a tool for recording crises, but as a space for building agency, raising ecological awareness and aiding social transformation.
Artists explore ecology and identity
The festival encourages audiences to question assumptions, embrace multiple perspectives and think critically about relationships between people, histories, landscapes and technology. Featuring works by emerging and established artists, the programme explores subjects including ecosystems, forest restoration and ecological renewal.
Ukrainian-born photographer Dasha Tenditna presents Not Alone, 2026. Her practice, rooted in an interest in people and how individual lives are shaped by social environments, maintains a close connection to Ukraine through documentary work after fleeing the war in 2022. Her projects explore difficult or overlooked subjects, including domestic violence, the consequences of war, and the experiences of marginalised communities.
Selected works and residencies
Debmalya Ray Choudhuri's The Weight of the Earth, developed over seven years, is a diary of fragility, loss and desire, exploring identity as a South Asian immigrant in a fragmented America, the death of a lover, and the artist's experience of tuberculosis. It was selected by Photoworks as part of the International Photography Festivals Association (IPFA) award 2025.
Holly Birtles developed Fighting Fish through the Chennai Photo Biennale X Photoworks Darkroom Residency, responding to the Adyar and Cooum rivers in India and identifying parallels linked to sentimentality, dedication, care and destruction. Sarker Protick's Awngar series explores colonial legacies, infrastructure and environmental transformation in Bangladesh. Eugenie Shinkle's The Deluge engages with landscape and human-technology relations, while Alma Haser's To Have a Tomcat uses paper-folding, collage and mixed media.
Photo Fringe and collective projects
Ayobami Ogungbe cuts up photographs of his hometown in Badagry, Nigeria, once a major slave centre. Johanna Alarcón's When the Earth Gives Birth documents Indigenous maternal healthcare in Ecuador, featuring midwives, apprentices and patients from AMUPAKIN and Partera di Anaku.
Photo Fringe has a refreshed focus on grassroots values since 2003: artist-led participation, experimentation, community connection and self-curated exhibitions. Photographers, artists, collectives, curators, community groups and organisers are invited to submit proposals for exhibitions in venues across the region, including galleries, community venues, cafes, seafront spaces and empty shops.
Halfdan Hallseth's Monument Chernobyl Series shows a tree growing through concrete in the unfinished cooling tower of Chernobyl's Reactor 5, offering a warning and a possibility about nature's resilience. Gil Mualem Doron's Sea of Change, created with young people from a fishing village in Sri Lanka, transforms plastic waste into wearable sculptures, masks and costumes, connecting local pollution experiences to the global ecological crisis.
