About 私たちについて
KYOTOGRAPHIE is an international photography festival based in Kyoto, a city globally recognised for its deep roots in history, art and culture. Each spring, the festival unravels across the city’s cultural spaces – traditional townhouses, galleries, museums, and temples alike – unfolding into an immersive celebration of photography.
The festival offers a unique and multifaceted experience that could only have emerged out of a city like Kyoto. Unconstrained by conventional exhibition spaces, KYOTOGRAPHIE is known for its innovative approach to scenography. These thoughtful installations are often crafted in collaboration with local architects and artisans, reshaping conventional formats to connect audiences with new ways of perceiving art and the spaces it occupies.
At the heart of each edition are the main exhibitions. Every year, co-directors Lucille Reyboz and Yusuke Nakanishi establish an overarching theme to guide the curation. Through a close collaboration with participating artists, curators, scenographers, venues and sponsors, the KYOTOGRAPHIE team brings together a programme that offers a deep and layered reflection on the theme.
KYOTOGRAPHIE offers much more than exhibitions. The festival features a wide range of public talk events and opportunities where audiences can meet the artists, portfolio reviews that support emerging talents, masterclasses led by participating photographers, and educational initiatives for children. Through these diverse activities, we invite visitors to experience the depth and richness of photographic expression from multiple perspectives.
At the core of KYOTOGRAPHIE – the people, settings, and ideas – is a meeting of diverse cultures and perspectives: local and international; traditional and contemporary; emerging and established. More than anything, its ethos is grounded in bringing people together and nurturing a space where difference is celebrated. This year, as we celebrate KYOTOGRAPHIE’S 14th edition, the festival continues its mission to build, reimagine, connect, and constantly evolve.
In photography, too, the edge is inherent. Throughout history, the medium has always existed on the fringes, hovering between document and art; truth and fiction. Now, with the dawn of new technologies and an overload of images, photography faces a new edge – of uncertainty, but also discovery. What lies beyond any edge is unknowable, but does chaos always end in collapse? Or can the edge invite us to imagine a different world?
KYOTOGRAPHIE 2026 explores the edge as a site of both tension and transition. We see radical approaches to photography alongside studies of urban decline, while documents of marginal communities intersect with ongoing issues of colonisation and territorial disputes. We also explore the transcendental force of nature, and see how reaching an edge can open up new ways of seeing, thinking, and creating – even in the face of the bleakest environmental, political, and personal turmoil.
The edge is a place of uncertainty, yes, but also of possibility. A place where something ends to make way for something new.
Lucille Reyboz & Yusuke Nakanishi
Co-founders and Co-Directors of
KYOTOGRAPHIE
Outline 開催概要
KYOTOGRAPHIE
International Photography Festival 2025
- EVENT NAME
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KYOTOGRAPHIE
International Photography Festival 2026
- DATES
- April 18 (Sat) - May 17 (Sun), 2026
Lucille Reyboz
KYOTOGRAPHIE Co-Founders and Directors
Lucille Reyboz
Born in 1973, Lucille Reyboz began her journey with photography in West Africa, where she spent a part of her childhood. She first travelled to Japan whilst working with Salif Keita, accompanying him when he was invited to collaborate on Ryuichi Sakamoto’s opera LIFE (1999). A portrait photo grapher, Reyboz also produced numerous record covers for labels such as Blue Note and Verve. While developing a prolific photographic practice, she exhibited her work worldwide, most notably the series Batammaba
Bâtisseurs d’Univers at Visa pour l’Image (2001), Source at Phillips de Pury, New York (2007), and Belles de Bamako at CHANEL Nexus Hall, Tokyo (2011). She has published several books, inclu ding Batammaba Bâtisseurs d’Univers (Gallimard, 2004), Source (Éditions de la Martinière, 2007), Belles de Bamako (Éditions de la Martinière, 2011) and Impressions du Japon (Éditions de la Martinière, 2013), co-authored with novelist Keiichiro Hirano. Reyboz lives
and works in Kyoto, where she co-founded and co-directs KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival, alongside Yusuke Nakanishi, in 2013, and KYOTOPHONIE Borderless Music Festival in 2023.
Yusuke Nakanishi
Lighting director, co-founder and co-director of KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival and KYOTOPHONIE Borderless Music Festival. Born in 1968, Yusuke Nakanishi is a lighting artist who travels the world, expressing his impressions of light and shadow from memory. He has worked as a lighting director for feature films, stage productions, music concerts, fashion shows and interior design projects. He also created the Eatable Lights object series
and has exhibited installations at the Hara Museum, the School Gallery Paris and Nuit Blanche Kyoto. Nakanishi lives and works in Kyoto, where he co-founded and co-directs KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival, alongside Lucille Reyboz, in 2013, and KYOTOPHONIE Borderless Music Festival in 2023.
© Isabel Munoz, 2018
Vision ビジョン
- KYOTOGRAPHIE aims to foster an appreciation of photography as a medium and art form.
- We actively seek innovation in audience and artist engagement, and bring opportunities’ for professional development, collaboration and self-expression.
- We strive to educate through our Public Program and exhibitions.
- We inspire a greater appreciation and understanding of photography, with original scenography in traditional and contemporary architecture.
- We hope that the exchanges born through KYOTOGRAPHIE will lead to new creations and businesses, contributing to the promotion of employment in the arts sector in Kyoto.
- We aim to establish KYOTOGRAPHIE as an important annual event that enhances global attention on Kyoto and provides a compelling reason for people from both Japan and abroad to visit the city.
The Story So Far これまでのストーリー
The 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami was a vivid reminder of the need for solid platforms for communication and cultural exchange between Japan and the rest of the world. Japanese camera and printing technology is legendary, but Japanese photographers still have a long way to go in terms of being recognised for their use of photography as a medium of expression. KYOTOGRAPHIE seeks to explore issues that affect us all through photography while showcasing the incredible talent in Japan and the rest of the world here in Kyoto, a city of both tradition and innovation.
In this effort we have benefited from the assistance of numerous corporations, organisations and individuals, as well as the city, prefectural and national governments. Without this support, KYOTOGRAPHIE would not be possible.
Young people, in particular, have the potential to serve as a link between Japan and the rest of the world. While every day of preparation has been a process of trial and error, each one has brought new encounters and opportunities.
We are confident this fusion of the new and the old will bring about new ways of thinking, and propel our festival to new heights.