Launched in 2016, the PhotoBrussels Festival has established itself over the years as a major event in contemporary photography in Brussels, Belgium and across Europe.

For its 11th edition, the festival brings together around 50 exhibitions hosted by art centres, galleries, alternative venues and public spaces, each offering a unique perspective on the medium of photography. More than 100 artists – including some big names such as Kendell Geers, Julia Fullerton-Batten and Andres Serrano – explore the richness and diversity of a visual language deeply rooted in our times, reaching an ever-wider and more curious audience.

This year, the festival is honouring more than 60 women photographers and highlighting their role in the history and contemporary landscape of photography.

This edition also takes on special significance as it forms part of the Bicentenary of Photography. Two centuries after its earliest experiments, this anniversary offers an opportunity to celebrate a medium in constant evolution and to examine its transformations, spanning heritage, innovation and new uses of the image.

The Tiny Gallery and Maison Hannon have therefore joined forces to offer workshops that revisit early photographic processes, whilst Hangar presents an exploration of the relevance of the ‘floral’ theme in contemporary photography. The flower becomes a photographic laboratory; it undergoes technical and aesthetic transformations that combine the spirit of invention with the latest innovations in AI.

The festival also pays particular attention to the new generation of photographers, whose perspectives and practices are helping to revitalise the medium. Alongside established artists, they explore the issues of our time – social change, environmental crises, identity, memory and privacy – and offer new perspectives on the world. Highlights of the programme include: the exhibition Puissantes, which examines how women are reclaiming their bodies through sport, at Centre culturel Jacques Franck; the exhibition Joy and Retreat, at Prague House, which brings together a generation of Czech photographers who turn their gaze towards a world that seems to be changing faster than we are able to understand it; Géopolis presents the work of Aubin Mukoni, a photojournalist and videographer and winner of the 2025 World Press Photo award, featuring a long-term series begun in 2020 on Lake Kivu, which explores water pollution and its effects on the ecosystem and local residents; the exhibition RUSH: the chemistry of desire at Vue Gallery brings together three photographic approaches that explore the evolution of the queer intimacy landscape in contemporary Europe, using photography primarily as a means to explore the emergence and growing visibility of “chemsex”.

In addition to the programme of exhibitions, workshops and guided tours, a series of lectures and discussions – featuring, amongst others, Dominique de Font-Réaulx, art historian and Chair of the Bicentenary of Photography Scientific Committee, and Michel Poivert, photography historian – is on offer throughout the month, making the PhotoBrussels Festival an unmissable event for photography enthusiasts.

By celebrating two hundred years of photography whilst placing contemporary creation at the centre of the programme, this 11th edition reaffirms the PhotoBrussels Festival’s mission: to provide an open and ambitious platform serving artists, photography and the public.