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.
Why are we fundraising?
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.