Photoworks Festival 2026: From fighting fish to Ecuadorian midwives in Brighton and Hove

Photoworks Festival 2026 is scheduled to open across Brighton and Hove on 2 October, bringing exhibitions and events together under the theme ‘Un/Stable: Lands, Anxieties, Dreams’. Running until 1 November, the programme uses photography to examine connections between identity, place, memory, community and the environment. A selection published by the Guardian on 30 September shows how artists approach those ideas through subjects ranging from Ecuadorian midwifery to rivers in England and India.

Photoworks says its exhibitions will take place at various locations in the two cities and feature young, emerging and established artists. Its programme also includes conferences, portfolio reviews, talks, tours, workshops and film screenings. The selected images offer a guide to the festival’s range, but the gallery is not a complete exhibition inventory; visitors need individual listings for the venue and opening times of particular shows.

How the Un/Stable theme runs through the work

Photoworks describes the theme as a way to consider what it means to live with uncertainty while imagining possible futures. It names climate change, belonging, resilience and social change among the issues in the programme. The organisation says the exhibitions invite visitors to consider relationships between people, histories, landscapes and technology. Those are the festival’s stated questions, rather than claims that viewing the photographs will produce a particular social or environmental result.

In ‘When the Earth Gives Birth’, Johanna Alarcón turns to Indigenous maternal healthcare in Ecuador. The Guardian describes a documentary project built around the stories of midwives, apprentices and patients associated with AMUPAKIN and Partera di Anaku, which its gallery identifies as Indigenous midwifery schools and hospitals in Ecuador’s Amazon and Andes. The exhibition addresses community-led care, reproductive sovereignty and the preservation of Indigenous knowledge, according to the gallery’s account.

Alma Haser’s ‘To Have a Tomcat’ takes a different formal approach. The Guardian says Haser uses analogue techniques, including paper folding, collage and mixed media, to build layers around her subjects. Her constructed images sit alongside documentary projects in a selection that extends beyond straightforward photographic recording. The range of methods reflects the festival’s stated interest in how images shape ways of seeing people and places.

Photography about displacement, memory and place

The Guardian’s selection includes ‘Not Alone’ (2026) by Dasha Tenditna. Its caption says the Ukrainian-born photographer fled the war in Ukraine in 2022 and maintained a connection with the country through documentary work. It describes her practice as concerned with how people’s lives are shaped by their social environments, including the consequences of war and the experiences of marginalised communities. The caption provides context for her work; it does not establish the precise venue or opening hours for this piece.

Debmalya Ray Choudhuri’s ‘The Weight of the Earth’ brings together personal history and loss. Developed over seven years, the series explores his identity as a South Asian immigrant in the United States, the death of a lover and his experience of tuberculosis as a young adult, according to the Guardian. The gallery says Photoworks selected the project as part of the International Photography Festivals Association award in 2025. Its long development distinguishes it from works made specifically for this October’s programme.

Other selected works examine how a place carries history. The Guardian describes Sarker Protick’s continuing ‘Awngar’ series as concerned with landscape, ecology and power in Bangladesh and the wider Bengal region; it says his work appears in the 2026 Photoworks Annual. Ayobami Ogungbe’s ‘Between the Ocean and the Lagoon – Point of Return’ cuts up photographs of his hometown of Badagry, Nigeria, which the gallery describes as a former major slave centre. In each case, the account of the work is the gallery’s description, not a claim about how audiences will respond.

Photoworks Festival dates and scheduled events

The festival is scheduled from 2 October to 1 November across Brighton and Hove. Photoworks lists a conference on the ‘Un/Stable’ theme at the University of Brighton’s School of Art and Media on 2 October, from 9:30am to 6pm. Exhibition openings are listed at various locations that evening, from 6pm to 8pm. The programme also lists a guided tour and talks on 4 October, and an artist talk with Holly Birtles at POST on 6 October from 6pm to 8pm. Photoworks directs visitors to individual event listings for schedules and booking details.