Hero, Florence, Massachusetts, 2022 © Holly Lynton.
Bristol Photo Festival’s third edition creates a palimpsest of past, present and future, explains festival director Alejandro Acín
In Castle Park, central Bristol, there is a plaque paying tribute to men from the city who joined the fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War. “It’s always been in my mind,” says Bristol Photo Festival director Alejandro Acín. This year marks 90 years since the Spanish Civil War but, with authoritarian governments and far-right activism rising across the globe, that moment now feels uncomfortably close.
It is a reminder that the past has a way of shapeshifting into the present, and this idea reverberates through the 2026 Bristol Photo Festival. Themed Time Machine, it includes a show taking place in a cave not far from the park featuring three artists exploring the contemporary resonance of the Spanish Civil War – Anna Jorné, Julián Barón and Natasha Christia. Their work is part of a city-wide programme of exhibitions in which photography is not simply a recording of the past, but an articulation of our non-linear experience of time. Memory of what has been and speculation about the future meet in the present day.
“Often the works that we bring explore historical events but from contemporary approaches, or vice versa, so there’s always this kind of entanglement of time that happens,” Acín notes, adding that Time Machine follows two previous editions focusing on movement (in 2024) and place (in 2021). “We can look at the three editions as almost a trilogy,” he explains.
“Culture this year is more political than ever. We are fighting to keep spaces that allow people to think, talk and look at the world differently”
– Alejandro Acín
This year a show by Goa-based artist Akshay Mahajan responds to the British Empire and Commonwealth Collection held in Bristol, drawing on Indian folklore to consider how the ghosts of colonialism still haunt the border between India and Pakistan. Italian photojournalist Giulio Di Sturco’s Anthropocosmos invites viewers into constructed spaces designed by scientists and engineers, meanwhile, to test out space conditions. His images show how humans are preparing for a potential – as yet unrealised – future beyond Earth.
There is also an exhibition presented by Kegham Djeghalian, the son of the late Kegham Avedis Garabet Djeghalian – an Armenian-Palestinian photographer who set up Gaza’s first photographic studio. Djeghalian Senior’s images are a portal to a flourishing pre-Nakba Palestine, which stands in stark contrast to the horrifying images of destruction of recent years. Elsewhere Annie Wang’s Mother as a Creator charts the Taiwanese artist’s journey into pregnancy, through motherhood, and on to the shifting, overlapping terrain she now occupies between her maternal and creative roles.
This edition of Bristol Photo Festival is Acín’s second as director (after a stint as director of education and engagement for the first edition); alongside it he runs IC Visual Lab with co-director Ben GJ Thomas and designer/producer Safia Belhaj. ICVL is based in the middle of the city, in the one-time home of the South African Resource Centre and curator Christine Eyene is drawing on the building’s radical history for an exhibition there, featuring work by George Hallett. An award-winning South African photographer, Hallett was exiled to London in the 1970s and made portraits of anti-apartheid creatives, writers, artists and musicians.
The festival includes a busy opening week from 14 to 18 October, featuring parties, openings and a symposium; it will also include an ‘education weekend’ in its five-week run, featuring masterclasses led by photographers and industry insiders. “It’s about building relationships where participants can continue developing their work,” says Acín.
The 2024 festival was a resounding success. Amak Mahmoodian’s exhibition in it, One Hundred and Twenty Minutes, went on to earn a Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize nomination, while some 40 per cent of those who went to the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery during its run were visiting the institution for the first time. “We had visitors from every postcode in Bristol, so on a local level we had pretty good engagement,” says Acín.
However, since then much has changed in Bristol (and beyond), with arts organisations facing a tougher funding landscape than ever. Bristol Photo Festival consists of curated exhibitions – rather than depending on an open call – which provides an income for some; this puts more financial pressure on the festival, and more onus on partnership. The closure of the Royal Photographic Society’s gallery has also had an impact, as it was previously a key venue – although some new spaces have come on board.
The festival, along with the wider photography community, is also still mourning the loss of Martin Parr in December 2025, a long-term Bristol resident and keen advocate of the programme. “It was very sad,” says Acín. “Martin was part of the board and he was always helpful with contacts, interested and supportive of the festival.” The festival maintains close ties with the Martin Parr Foundation, whose group exhibition Dark Tales: British Documentary Photography and the Gothic will be on show during its run; the popular Bristol on Photobooks will also return to MPF on 17 and 18 October.
Acín is open about the difficulties, believing it is important for organisations to speak up about the impact of massive cuts to public arts in the UK, and the loss of access to EU funding post-Brexit. “It’s a reality that’s very palpable, very tangible,” he says. “Culture this year is more political than ever. We are fighting to keep spaces that allow people to think, talk and look at the world differently.”
Bristol Photo Festival takes place from 14 October–15 November 2026. BOP is the weekend of 17–18 October 2026.
