About | Bristol Photo Festival

Bristol Photo Festival is a new and innovative festival that celebrates the power and diversity of photography. We commission and produce national, international solo and group exhibitions in a biannual festival across the city of Bristol. We also run an ongoing national and international programme of talks, events, workshops and training through a partnership model of collaboration.

The festival offers innovative commissions for photographers, provides platforms for students & emerging photographers and produces an extensive outreach & engagement programme across Bristol with schools, community groups, third level educational institutions, charities and libraries. The festival also partners with major international photography festivals to bring new work to international audiences.

The first exhibition program will take place from May 2021.

A Sense of Place

To photograph a place is to describe a location that has been shaped, nurtured and even contested. It can define the frontier between nature and culture and hint at the complexities of ownership and access. It can be attended by competing narratives and polarised histories, whether they lean left or right.

It can shape our understanding of the world and the qualities that come to define us and it can be about belonging, about appreciation and knowing a place so well that it is like no other. The components of cultural landscape elements play a significant role in defining the sense of place. These components are people, landform, water bodies, climate, economy, social, political which influence on the identity of place.

Bristol Photo Festival is a Community Interest Company run by a small Board of Trustees and a number of core staff.

The Board are: Rudi Thoemmes, Amak Mahmoodian, Alejandro Acin and Tracy Marshall. At the core of Bristol Photo Festival is our collaborations and our partnerships, which have been key to the development and roll out of the festival.

CULTURAL AND COMMUNITY PARTNERS

FUNDING PARTNERS

ARTS COUNCIL OF ENGLAND | BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL

SPONSORS

MEDIA PARTNERS

The Guardian | 1000 words | BRISTOL 24/7 | Elephant | British Journal of Photography

Bristol Photo Festival is a new and innovative festival, commissioning and producing exhibitions biannually across the city, alongside an ongoing programme of talks, events, workshops and training through a partnership model of collaboration. The festival provides platforms for national, international, student and emerging photographers, and an extensive outreach and engagement programme with schools, community groups, third level educational institutions, charities and libraries.

Bristol Photo Festival is a Community Interest Company sustained by financial support from grants, partnerships and donations. This support is vital to enable us to continue our work from year to year providing free exhibitions across the city of Bristol, undertaking new commissions, providing platforms for local and international artists and providing education and engagement opportunities in photography for everyone.