If you want to explore the festival in-depth, while letting someone else deal with the navigation and logistics, then join one of our regular walking tours. We will be leading tours on the following dates:
Sunday 25th October, 2-4pm, with Alejandro Acin (Festival Director) – BOOK HERE
Saturday 31 October, 2–4.30pm, with artist Julián Barón – BOOK HERE
Saturday 7 November, 2-4.30pm, with curator Taous Dahmani – BOOK HERE
Saturday 14 November 2-4.30pm, with curator Christine Eyene – BOOK HERE
We have also organised two extra special tours for families and carers with young children:
If you have any access-related queries, please contact us at engagement@bristolphotofstival.org or drop us a message via instagram. We will get back to you as soon as possible.
If you want to explore the festival in-depth, while letting someone else deal with the navigation and logistics, then join one of our regular walking tours. We will be leading tours on the following dates:
Sunday 25th October, 2-4pm, with Alejandro Acin (Festival Director) – BOOK HERE
Saturday 31 October, 2–4.30pm, with artist Julián Barón – BOOK HERE
Saturday 7 November, 2-4.30pm, with curator Taous Dahmani – BOOK HERE
Saturday 14 November 2-4.30pm, with curator Christine Eyene – BOOK HERE
We have also organised two extra special tours for families and carers with young children:
Bristol Photo Festival (BPF) is an international photography festival that supports and showcases the best of contemporary photography in a city-wide programme across established museums, galleries, and unconventional spaces.
The 2026 festival is going ahead, but the loss of core funding has left a £10,000 gap in our budget. Thanks to the generosity of our volunteers, sponsors and partners, we’re delivering an ambitious programme of free exhibitions and events. But we need your help to meet the costs of this year’s festival and put us in a stronger position to plan future editions.
If you’ve enjoyed the festival, believe in free access to art, or simply love photography, please consider donating what you might pay for an exhibition ticket, or choosing one of our special rewards, created by artists to celebrate the festival. Every contribution makes a difference.
BPF was set up in 2019 as an organisation to champion photography and photographic culture. The late Martin Parr was instrumental in the first edition of the festival, which brought together museums, galleries, local artists, international artists and local businesses to create a dynamic and challenging cultural programme across the city.
For the past six years, BPF has transformed churches, museums, empty buildings and unexpected corners of the city into places where people gather to reflect on the world around them. Together, we have welcomed more than 200,000 visitors, presented artists from across the world, collaborated with communities throughout Bristol, and created spaces where difficult, joyful and necessary conversations can unfold through photography. We’ve discovered lost archives, premiered retrospectives of world-renowned photographers, and created opportunities for local artists.
In 2026, whilst building the programme for this edition, we lost a significant amount of core funding.Over the last six years we’ve seen public funding become more uncertain, whilst suppliers and services costs are increasing. Whilst we have done all we can to still make the festival happen (through last-minute grants, volunteering, borrowing and negotiating) we need to raise funds to cover the shortfall and continue working on the festival past the 2026 edition.
We have a fantastic programme for 2026, entitled “Time Machine”, transporting viewers through contested histories and speculative futures. Taking place at ten locations across central Bristol and beyond (including Arnolfini, The Welcome Building, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery), festival highlights include: a fresh exploration of photography’s history led by some of the medium’s leading thinkers; the first UK exhibition of Photo Kegham; new commissions by Sheida Soleimani and Akshay Mahajan; and a major tribute to Martin Parr.
If you’ve enjoyed the festival, believe in free access to art, or simply love photography, please consider donating what you might pay for an exhibition ticket. Every contribution makes a difference.
About our work
Bristol Photo Festival is a small, independent organisation with big ambitions. Retaining this independence is essential to the ambitions of the festival, enabling us to support artists and programmes that challenge established narratives, showcase different perspectives, and imagine impossible futures.
We work with local and international artists and organisations through exhibitions and new commissions. Celebrated artists, such as Stephen Gill and Rinko Kawauchi, received their first major UK retrospective as part of BPF. This work has received international recognition, with artists and festival exhibitions shortlisted for and recognised by major awards, including the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize.
Alongside our exhibition programme, we develop long-term projects with port dockers, refugees and prison communities, working together to share, document and preserve their visual histories. For some participants, these projects have provided their first opportunity to visit and engage with some of the city’s major cultural venues.
We provide educational and professional development opportunities for emerging photographers, creating opportunities to learn, connect and develop their practice. This is an area we are committed to strengthening and building upon in future editions.
We believe photography is for all, and we are committed to continuing the work we are doing to promote the medium, and engage audiences and participants through this medium.
We need your help to continue to do this work.
What you are supporting
By supporting Bristol Photo Festival you are helping to:
Fund a programme of ten ambitious exhibitions, which are free to access.
Ensure our committed team are fairly paid for their hard work.
Commission new work by artists from Bristol and around the world.
Create free exhibitions across the city.
Open buildings that would otherwise remain underused or empty.
Preserve overlooked histories and community memories.
Develop opportunities for young people to support their practice
Create spaces where difficult conversations can happen with generosity, curiosity and imagination.
Build an independent organisation able to take creative risks and remain free to question structures of power.
Most importantly, you are helping to ensure that culture remains something we make together.
Welcome Building®, near Temple Meads will host five international exhibitions, including a tribute to the late Bristol-based photographer Martin Parr, as Bristol Photo Festival returns from Wednesday 14 October to Sunday 15 November 2026 for its third edition with the theme of Time Machine
A floor of Welcome Building®, a new multi-award-winning workplace at 4 Glass Wharf in Bristol, is set to be transformed into a free public gallery this autumn, inviting visitors into the building in the heart of the city’s business district.
As one of the main exhibition hubs of Bristol Photo Festival 2026, the office building will welcome members of the public alongside its usual workplace community to the international biennial, hosting exhibitions, talks, tours and events.
Among the exhibitions will be Common Sense, presented as a tribute to the late Martin Parr, one of Britain’s most influential photographers and the inaugural artistic director of Bristol Photo Festival.
Originally created using inexpensive colour photocopies, Parr’s project challenged conventional ideas about how photography should be exhibited and will now be shown in the distinctly unconventional setting of a contemporary Bristol office building.
Welcome Building® will also host Maria Lax’s series, Stray Sod, exploring folklore, storytelling and uncertain landscapes, and Photo Kegham curated by Kegham Djeghalian Jr, drawing on the archive of Gaza’s first commercial photography studio founded in 1944 by his grandfather, Kegham Deghalian Sr.
The unusual venue has been made possible through a collaboration supported by Bristol BID, bringing together Bristol Photo Festival and partners from the city’s commercial property sector. The partnership is designed to open up spaces that would not normally be used for public culture, while creating closer links between Bristol’s business and creative communities.
Sabrina Shutter, Senior Project Event Manager at Bristol BID, says of the collaboration: “Bristol has an incredible creative community and a thriving business community, and we want to create more opportunities for those two worlds to come together.
“Welcome Building® is a brilliant example of what can happen when we look at corporate spaces differently. By helping connect Bristol Photo Festival with businesses and property partners, we can unlock new places for culture, bring extraordinary art to new audiences and give people another reason to explore this part of the city.
“We hope this partnership encourages more businesses to think creatively about their spaces and the role they can play in Bristol’s cultural life.”
Welcome Building® will also host the Festival’s opening event from 6–9pm on Wednesday 14 October 2026, alongside guided tours and a three-day masterclass with Magnum photographer Olivia Arthur.
Andrew Clarke, Vice President, UK Office Development at Trammell Crow Company, explains: “Welcome Building® has been designed as much more than simply a place to work, so we’re delighted to see part of it transformed for Bristol Photo Festival.
“Opening the building to a major cultural event is a fantastic opportunity to welcome new people into the space and connect those working here with Bristol’s wider creative community. It demonstrates how modern workplaces can contribute to the life of the city around them, and we’re looking forward to seeing the building take on an entirely different character during the Festival.”
Across Bristol, the wider Festival will feature exhibitions at Arnolfini, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol Cathedral, IC Visual Lab, Centrespace Gallery, and Redcliffe Caves.
Highlights include Joy Gregory’s Catching Flies with Honey at Arnolfini, Akshay Mahajan’s People of Clay and Sheida Solemani’s Persistence Studies at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, and George Hallett’s Home & Exile at IC Visual Lab.
The Festival’s opening week will also include artist talks, curator tours, workshops, live music and the Time Machine Festival Symposium at Arnolfini on Friday 16 October 2026.
Alejandro Acín, Director of Bristol Photo Festival, says of this year’s edition: “Time Machine brings together artists and curators whose work reminds us that the present is never singular. Every photograph carries traces of multiple temporalities, memories that continue to shape us, histories that refuse to disappear and futures that remain open to possibility.
“At a time when cultural organisations across the UK face significant challenges, this edition is also a testament to the power of collaboration. It has only been possible through the commitment of artists, funders, partners and communities who believe that this festival can help us better understand the complexity of the world we inhabit.”
The 2026 edition follows Bristol Photo Festival’s 2024 event, which attracted more than 115,000 visitors across venues throughout the city.
Welcome Building® exhibitions will be free to visit and open 12–6pm Thursday to Sunday, during the Festival.
Our one-day symposium will bring together artists from across the festival for a day of lively discussion, unpacking the ideas behind the exhibition programme. Speakers will include: Natasha Christia, Kegham Djeghalian Jr, Joy Gregory, Anna Jornet, Akshay Mahajan, Liu Hsing Yu, Annie Wang, and others.
The symposium is a unique opportunity to hear leading voices from across the photographic world, together in the same room. Throughout the day there will be opportunities for audience questions and the chance to informally meet the artists.
The symposium is co-presented with the British Journal of Photography, FOAM Magazine and the University of the West of England.
TICKETS
Tickets are available to buy via our partner Headfirst.
Tickets are available at an Early Bird price of £20. As the event approaches, the ticket price will increase to £25.
If you are a current University of the West of England you will receive a 40% discount. A valid student ID will be required upon arrival at the symposium.
10.20 – 11.00 – talk one – Alternative Histories of Photography Sergio Valenzuela Escobedo, Annabelle Lacour and Christine Eyene moderated by Alejandro Acín
11.00 – 11.15 – Coffee break
11.15 – 11.50 – talk two – Folk tales of the India-Bangladesh border with Akshay Mahajan and Julia Carver
11.50 – 12.30 – talk three – Family inheritance with Yuko Edwards, Kelly O’Brien and Diane Smyth.
12.30 – 13:10 – LUNCH
13.10 – 13.45 – talk four – Histories of the Spanish Civil War with Natasha Christia and Anna Jornet, in conversation with Alejandro Acín
13.45 – 14.25 – talk five – From Armenia to Palestine with Kegham Deghalian Jr
14.25 – 14.40 – Coffee break
14.40 – 15.15 – talk six – Motherhood and queer belonging with Annie Wang and Liu Hsing Yu.Liu Hsing Yu, in conversation with Diane Smyth
15.15 – 16.00 – talk seven – Catching flies with honey with Joy Gregory and Shawn Sobers
Our one-day symposium will bring together artists from across the festival for a day of lively discussion, unpacking the ideas behind the exhibition programme. Speakers will include: Natasha Christia, Kegham Djeghalian Jr, Joy Gregory, Anna Jornet, Akshay Mahajan, Liu Hsing Yu, Annie Wang, and others.
The symposium is a unique opportunity to hear leading voices from across the photographic world, together in the same room. Throughout the day there will be opportunities for audience questions and the chance to informally meet the artists.
The symposium is co-presented with the British Journal of Photography, FOAM Magazine and the University of the West of England.
TICKETS
Tickets are available to buy via our partner Headfirst.
Tickets are available at an Early Bird price of £20. As the event approaches, the ticket price will increase to £25.
If you are a current University of the West of England you will receive a 40% discount. A valid student ID will be required upon arrival at the symposium.
10.20 – 11.00 – talk one – Alternative Histories of Photography Sergio Valenzuela Escobedo, Annabelle Lacour and Christine Eyene moderated by Alejandro Acín
11.00 – 11.15 – Coffee break
11.15 – 11.50 – talk two – Folk tales of the India-Bangladesh border with Akshay Mahajan and Julia Carver
11.50 – 12.30 – talk three – Family inheritance with Yuko Edwards, Kelly O’Brien and Diane Smyth.
12.30 – 13:10 – LUNCH
13.10 – 13.45 – talk four – Histories of the Spanish Civil War with Natasha Christia and Anna Jornet, in conversation with Alejandro Acín
13.45 – 14.25 – talk five – From Armenia to Palestine with Kegham Deghalian Jr
14.25 – 14.40 – Coffee break
14.40 – 15.15 – talk six – Motherhood and queer belonging with Annie Wang and Liu Hsing Yu.Liu Hsing Yu, in conversation with Diane Smyth
15.15 – 16.00 – talk seven – Catching flies with honey with Joy Gregory and Shawn Sobers
Join us from 6-9pm at the Welcome Building (Avon Street BS2 0QF) where we will be launching 5 exhibitions:
– One of Many: An Alternative History of Photography (Group exhibition) – Stray Sod by Maria Lax – Photo Kegham by Kegham Djeghalian Jr – Common Sense by Martin Parr: Festival Tribute – HEAT (Group exhibition in collaboration with the Magnum Foundation)
To mark the launch, we have organised two special in-conversation events, including musical contributions:
First, Christine Eyene (Curator of George Hallett: Home & Exile) will be unpacking the legacy of South African jazz musicians who lived in exile during the apartheid years, sharing rare recordings alongside portraits taken by George Hallett. Following this, Maria Lax will be in-conversation with the festival’s curator, unpacking the Irish folk tales behind her exhibition Stray Sod. Music programmer David McKeown will join Maria, playing rare folk songs to accompany her images.
THURSDAY 15 OCTOBER
4–6pm | Exhibition Tour | Martin Parr Foundation → Arnos Vale Cemetery Free | Booking required | At Martin Parr Foundation, curator Isaac Blease will lead a tour of the exhibition Dark Tales, exploring the relationship between British documentary photography and the gothic tradition. Following this, we will head to Arnos Vale Cemetery where artist Michel Campeau will introduce his exhibition Darkroom, which is staged in the Anglican Chapel Crypt.
A full day of artist talks and in-conversations bringing together leading voices from across the festival programme. Speakers include Natasha Christia, Kegham Djeghalian Jr, Joy Gregory, Anna Jornet, Akshay Mahajan, Liu Hsing Yu and Annie Wang, with conversations ranging from Palestinian history to queer representation in East Asia.
4.30-6.30pm | Exhibition Opening | Redcliffe Caves, BS1 6SR Free | No booking required Join us for the opening of No Pasarán by Natasha Christia, Julián Barón and Anna Jornet. Marking the 90th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, the exhibition brings together three Spanish artists whose work explores how histories and symbols of the past continue to shape contemporary Spain.
5-8pm | Exhibition Opening | Arnolfini, BS1 4QA Free | RSVP Celebrate the opening of Joy Gregory’s landmark exhibition at Arnolfini, bringing together more than 150 works from across her career. Since the early 1980s, Gregory has challenged expectations of photography and explored questions around Black British and feminist representation.
We have invited three of Bristol’s most compelling live artists to develop new performances for the opening of the festival. The line-up includes: Jabu + Memotone, Dan Johnson & Anushiye Yarnell, and Regina Collage. The night will also feature projections of photography from across the festival programme.
Explore the festival with our curators, visiting a selection of exhibitions across Bristol and hearing directly from some of the artists involved. Two separate tours are available, covering different venues and exhibitions. You can attend the morning, afternoon or both.
Morning Tour | 10am–12.45pm | Bristol Museum & Art Gallery → Bristol Cathedral → Arnolfini Meet at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery to explore Persistence Studies by Sheida Soleimani and People of Clay by Akshay Mahajan. Continue on to Bristol Cathedral for Holly Lynton’s Beyond the Bounds, including an artist conversation with Christiane Monarchi and Gordon Macdonald, the editors of Hapax Magazine. From the cathedral, we will head to Arnolfini to view Joy Gregory’s Catching Flies with Honey.
Afternoon Tour | 2–5pm | Centrespace → Kit Form → IC Visual Lab → The Welcome Building Starting at Centrespace with Family Times by Annie Wang and Liu Hsing Yu, the tour continues to Kit Form for Inherited by Yuko Edwards and Kelly O’Brien, then IC Visual Lab for George Hallett’s Home & Exile. Finish at The Welcome Building where there will be 5 exhibitions.
SUNDAY 18 OCTOBER
2–4pm | Exhibition Opening | Kit Form Free | No Booking Required Join us at Kit Form for an informal Sunday gathering celebrating the opening of Inherited by Yuko Edwards and Kelly O’Brien.
BOP Bristol – Books on Photography | Martin Parr Foundation Taking place across the opening weekend, BOP Bristol is the city’s annual photobook festival, organised by Martin Parr Foundation. Discover photography books, publishers and artists from Bristol and beyond.
ELSEWHERE IN THE CITY
BOP BOOKFAIR 17 & 18 Oct 2026 Paintworks
The book fair is held across the Paintworks Event Space and Martin Parr Foundation. Publishers, photographers and photobook sellers join us from across the UK, Europe and further afield to showcase the latest work happening in the photobook community.
First presented in 1999, Common Sense is one of Martin Parr’s most ambitious and influential photographic projects. Bringing together images made across the world, the series turns Parr’s close, saturated and often humorous gaze towards the details of everyday life. From food and fashion to souvenirs, animals and consumer goods. Using a 35mm camera, ring flash and macro lens, Parr developed a distinctive visual language of fragments, surfaces and punchy colours, allowing seemingly insignificant details to build into a larger portrait of contemporary life.
The radicalism of Common Sense, however, extends beyond the photographs themselves. Parr deliberately rejected the conventions of photographic exhibition-making, presenting the work through inexpensive colour Xerox prints, a technology more commonly associated with everyday office and commercial printing than with the display of contemporary photography. By embracing a process designed for speed, repetition and circulation, the exhibition questioned the status of the photographic print as a precious object and opened up new possibilities for how photography could be reproduced, exhibited and distributed.
This radical approach continued through the exhibition’s unprecedented international dissemination. Rather than being conceived as a single exhibition in one place, Common Sense was designed to circulate simultaneously across the world. In April 1999, it was presented in 41 galleries across five continents, with 44 venues in total hosting the work during March, April and May. It was recognised as the largest simultaneous photography exhibition ever organised.
Common Sense therefore operates not only as a body of photographs, but as an experiment in mass visual communication.
This exhibition is also a tribute to Martin Parr, who served as Artistic Director of the first edition of Bristol Photo Festival and remained a member of the festival’s Board until 2025, making his contribution to the festival’s development and vision a crucial part of its history.
Bio
Martin Parr was born in 1952 in Epsom, Surrey. He is one of the best-known documentary photographers of his generation. Having published over 100 books of his own and edited another 30 in his lifetime, Parr built a long-lasting legacy.
Parr also acted as a curator. He curated two photography festivals, Arles in 2004 and Brighton Biennial in 2010 and was the artistic director of the inaugural edition of Bristol Photo Festival in 2021. In 2016, he curated the Barbican exhibition, Strange and Familiar. Parr became a member of Magnum Photos in 1994 and was president from 2013 to 2017. In 2013, he was also appointed the visiting professor of photography at the University of Ulster.
Parr’s work has been collected by many of the world’s leading museums, from Tate in the UK to the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He established the Martin Parr Foundation in 2017.
The Prison Mobile Library is a participatory project produced by IC Visual Lab that brings together writing and photography created by people in prison, reflecting on life before, during and after incarceration. Through creative workshops, participants explore their experiences, memories and hopes for the future, creating original work to be shared with others across the prison system.
Within prison, there are limited opportunities to collectively reflect on personal experiences and the journeys that have led to incarceration. The project creates a space for shared reflection and learning, using photography and writing to open conversations, build trust and break down barriers.
The workshops encourage participants to consider the events, relationships and patterns that have shaped their lives, while developing greater self-awareness and understanding of their own journeys. Through making and sharing, they can revisit their personal stories and consider how they might be understood differently.
The resulting works form a unique library authored by people with first-hand experience of imprisonment—an archive of personal voices and lived experience. Rather than defining people solely through incarceration, the project creates space for more complex narratives to emerge, exploring how creative practice can support reflection, connection and transformation.
The exhibition presents a selection of publications from the library alongside material documenting the creative process undertaken during the workshops.
This project has been supported by Weston College, John James Bristol Foundation, and the Van Neste Foundation.
Biography
IC Visual Lab (ICVL) is a Bristol-based independent arts organisation working across photography, film, visual archives, and education. Founded to create new ways of producing, sharing and understanding visual culture, ICVL brings together artists, communities, researchers and cultural organisations through exhibitions, commissions, participatory projects and alternative forms of learning.
Its work focuses on making visual culture more accessible, collaborative and socially engaged, with a particular interest in underrepresented stories, archives and communities. Through long-term partnerships and experimental approaches to cultural production, ICVL aims to democratise who gets to make, shape and preserve culture.
Heat brings together projects developed through Magnum Foundation’s 2023–25 Photography Expanded Fellowship, which supported photographers exploring new ways of telling stories about the climate crisis and the inextricable relationship between communities and land. Across eighteen landscapes around the world, these photographers encounter places where multiple timelines coexist: histories embedded in the land, environmental transformations unfolding in the present, and futures that remain to be imagined.
Rather than depicting climate change solely through images of catastrophe, the projects look at the longer histories and lived experiences behind environmental disruption. They reveal how landscapes become archives—holding memories of extraction and displacement, but also knowledge, resilience and forms of connection passed between generations. The past is not behind us; it continues to shape the conditions of the present.
Across these eighteen projects, the climate crisis is understood not as a single event or distant future, but as a condition unfolding across multiple timescales. The photographs bring past, present and future into the same frame, asking us to consider how the landscapes we inherit shape the worlds we are capable of imagining and what might remain for those who come after us.
Photographers Included
Andrea Hernández Briceño (Venezuela), Farhana Satu (Bangladesh), Fatma Fahmy (Egypt), Florence Goupil (Peru), Gayatri Ganju (India), Giya Makondo-Wills (United Kingdom / South Africa), Hashem Shakeri (Iran), José Luis Arroyo-Robles (Mexico), Kunga Tashi Lepcha (India), Luis Antonio Rojas (Mexico), Luján Agusti (Argentina), Mahmoud Khattab (Egypt), María Valqui (Peru), Miora Rajaonary (Madagascar), Ofoe Amegavie (Ghana), River Claure (Bolivia), seth cardinal dodginghorse (Tsuut’ina Nation), and Zumrad Mirzalieva (Uzbekistan).
