Circulation(s) 2026 – Photography Festival
Alice Bouju
Europe’s emerging photography festival Circulation(s)
The sixteenth edition of photography festival Circulation(s) brings together some of the most exciting emerging photographers from across Europe. Organized by the collective Fetart, the festival continues to position itself as a space for experimentation, new visual languages, and contemporary social reflection.
This year, 26 artists from 15 different nationalities took over the festival with projects moving between photography, installation, video, archive, and performance. More than ever, the 2026 edition embraces hybridity. Images leave the wall, installations become immersive, and storytelling moves between fiction and documentary. That’s why Circulation(s) stands out as a photography festival event in Europe.
New forms of storytelling at Circulation(s) photography festival
One of the strongest aspects of this year’s edition is the way artists use photography as a starting point rather than a fixed medium. Many of the works presented combine moving images, objects, textiles, sound, or sculptural elements that you might only expect to find at a dynamic photography festival.
Across the Circulation(s), themes of memory, identity, ecology, gender, and belonging repeatedly emerge, often through personal narratives. Yet despite these serious subjects, the exhibition avoids becoming overly heavy. Therefore, humor, theatricality, vibrant colors, and staged realities frequently appear throughout the parcours, creating a balance between playfulness and political reflection.
Now, let IRK take you through its selection of standout favourites from this year’s Circulation(s).
Nina Pacherová: The Reality Check
Firstly, in The Reality Check, Slovak artist Nina Pacherová explores motherhood, gender conditioning and female identity through the visual universe of The Sims. Mixing digital imagery with textile installations, she transforms video game glitches into metaphors for inherited social expectations. The project feels both ironic and unsettling, using familiar virtual environments to question very real structures of domestic life.
Natalia Majchrzak: Keczupowo
With Keczupowo, Polish-Belgian artist Natalia Majchrzak reconstructs fragments of childhood memories tied to her Polish origins. Combining video, installation, and performance, she creates a fictionalized version of nostalgia where personal memory becomes theatrical and unstable. The project’s mix of humor, distance, and melancholy makes it one of the highlights of this year’s Circulation(s).
Dónal Talbot: Becoming
Irish artist Dónal Talbot presents Becoming at Circulation(s), a deeply sensitive project reflecting on queer identity, perception, and transformation. Therefore, his images move between body and landscape, intimacy and abstraction, creating a quiet meditation on selfhood outside imposed norms. Overall, his work feels fluid and instinctive, and is exactly the kind of exploration celebrated in a photography festival.
Matevž Čebašek: In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining
Slovenian artist Matevž Čebašek delivers one of the Circulation(s) most moving projects with In the Mountains, the Sun is Shining. Built around his grandmother’s dementia and family archives, the work reflects on memory as something fragile, fragmented, and deeply subjective. Photography and video intertwine with personal history to create an intimate reflection on both family and collective memory in Slovenia, showcasing the versatility seen at any vibrant photography festival.
Zgornja Bela, 2025 “My mother sitting next to her mother. Together with her brother, they are now experiencing their parent’s dementia for the second time. This time, they have taken their mother’s role as primary caretakers.”
Marine Billet: Reliées
Finally, French photographer Marine Billet presents Reliées, a delicate series focusing on young women navigating the transition between adolescence and adulthood. Blending documentary and staged photography, the project captures moments of hesitation, silence, and emotional vulnerability. As a result, her images feel suspended between reality and fiction, creating a sensitive portrait of identity.
A photography festival not to miss
More than a simple photography festival, Circulation(s) offers a snapshot of how emerging artists are redefining visual storytelling today. Overall, the diversity of approaches, formats, and subjects creates an exhibition that feels constantly alive and unpredictable.
For anyone interested in contemporary photography beyond traditional formats, this is an unmissable festival to experience in Paris every year.
Share this post
Alice is a Paris based photograper with a passion for fashion. Based in Paris, she develops an approach that brings together photography and writing, often mixing the two within her projects.
Her work is deeply rooted in reality. She is particularly drawn to documentary practices, using images and text as complementary tools to observe, question, and reinterpret the world around her. Whether through visual series or written pieces, she seeks to capture fragments of the everyday and give them a new narrative dimension.
She has developed a strong interest in research and editorial work. Writing articles, exploring contexts, and building stories from real-life subjects naturally extend her creative process. This intersection between documentation and storytelling reflects a field she has long been eager to explore.
Read Next
