Fatma Hassona was a Palestinian photographer and activist who documented life in Gaza amid unimaginable circumstances. On 16 April 2025, at just 25 years old, Hassona was killed in an airstrike alongside several members of her family.

Intimate and grounded in lived experience, Hassona's coverage garnered wide attention on social media. In the 18 months before her death, she became a bright, determined presence - someone who truly believed in the power of photography to fight injustice.

This year, KYOTOGRAPHIE pays tribute to Hassona's remarkable images through a presentation of her work. According to the UN announcement on 04 September 2025, at least 248 journalists have now been killed in Gaza - more than in any other war in modern times. At a time when risks to journalists are unprecedented, this exhibition offers a small space to reflect on this great tragedy, and the countless lives that have been lost.

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“This exhibition presents a large and contradictory archive of photobooks of and about South Africa made between 1945 and 2025. The focus is geographic, but not nationalistic. Books published internationally sit alongside books produced locally. The exhibition presents evidence of a cosmopolitan book culture during the politically charged years of high apartheid years (1948–94), when state repression and censorship ensnared even photobooks. It also includes abundant examples of innovation in photography and book design in the democratic years that followed (1994–present).”
– Sean O’Toole, 2025

First shown at A4 Arts Foundation in 2022, Photo book! Photo-book! Photobook! has continued to be updated and adapted. At KYOTOGRAPHIE 2026, the exhibition will see the launch of curator Sean O'Toole's new book, which explores themes of innovation, risk and resistance in the South African photobook. The book includes an extensive essay on Ernest Cole's House of Bondage (1967) and David Goldblatt's In Boksburg (1982), as well as biographies of nearly 50 important books published since the 1950s.

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Anton Corbijn is best known for immortalising some of the world's greatest artists: Depeche Mode, U2, The Rolling Stones, Gerhard Richter and Ai Weiwei, to name a few. Shot in his distinct style - black-and-white with a slow shutter speed - Corbijn's portraits are visceral, embodying the subtle movements and gestures of his famous subjects. "I feel the imperfection is much closer to how life is than perfection," the artist said, in an interview with TIME magazine in 2015.

In 2025 the master photographer celebrated two anniversaries: his 70th birthday, and 50 years as an artist. This selective retrospective will bring together a range of both iconic and lesser-known images, tracing half a century of his striking portraiture practice.

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Linder Sterling (b. 1954) is one of Britain's most influential and iconoclastic contemporary artists.

Emerging from the late 1970s punk scene, she is celebrated for her radical use of photography and photomontage to challenge and reimagine ideas of desire and the female body. This selective retrospective, developed in close collaboration with the artist, brings together key works and series that trace the evolution of her groundbreaking practice. Linder's distinctive visual language draws on the spirit of Dada artists such as Hannah Hoch and Man Ray, as well as the dreamlike provocations of the great Surrealists, while being wholly contemporary in its attitude and outlook.

This will be Linder's first major exhibition in Japan. Building on the momentum of her recent retrospective at London's Hayward Gallery, the presentation affirms Linder's position as one of the great feminist mavericks of the British art scene, whose work continues to provoke, inspire, and redefine representations of women in art and culture.

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Every day over 3,000 shoe shiners take to the streets of La Paz, Bolivia. These anonymous workers are part of Bolivia's informal economy, leaving them vulnerable to discrimination and without basic labour rights. To conceal their identities, they wear disguises because no one in their neighbourhoods know they shine shoes - even their own families believe they have other jobs.

These shoe shiners operate in the margins of society - but not in Federico Estol's images.

Instead, he reframes them as superheroes. The artist worked collaboratively with 60 shoe shiners and Hormigón Armada, a local initiative that produces a monthly newspaper to raise money for the workers. In 2019, Estol produced a special photographic edition. Since then, they have made CDs, toys, calendars, and postcards, funded by the project's success within the photography industry.

Winner of the open competition KG+ SELECT in 2025, Estol presents this new solo exhibition as part of his prize. The exhibition will also feature products that the shoeshiners typically use in La Paz, presented within an installation where their masks are not a symbol of anonymity, but of identity and unity.

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For Thandiwe Muriu, photography is a way of honouring heritage while questioning the cultural forces that shape identity.

As KYOTOGRAPHIE's African Artist in Residence, the Kenyan artist will present two exhibitions, showcasing her signature series alongside new work made in Kyoto.

As a woman who operated in a male-dominated industry in Kenya, Thandiwe repeatedly confronted questions around the role of women in society, the place of tradition, and her own self-perception. These experiences inspired her CAMO series, where her subjects both disappear and serve as a canvas of reflection. Hidden meanings are woven into every image through the everyday objects and hairstyles inspired by archival photographs. Every image is accompanied by an African proverb, expressing the collected oral wisdom of generations past even as Muriu communicates culture in a visual form.

Alongside CAMO, Muriu will show a new chapter of this series created during her residency in Kyoto. Although she had never visited before, Japan consistently appeared in her research of textile histories. Expanding on this, Muriu incorporates traditional Japanese fabric and prints into her images, exploring the connections and shared histories between Kenyan and Japanese visual languages.

About Program

For Thandiwe Muriu, photography is a way of honouring heritage while questioning the cultural forces that shape identity.

As KYOTOGRAPHIE's African Artist in Residence, the Kenyan artist will present two exhibitions, showcasing her signature series alongside new work made in Kyoto.

As a woman who operated in a male-dominated industry in Kenya, Thandiwe repeatedly confronted questions around the role of women in society, the place of tradition, and her own self-perception. These experiences inspired her CAMO series, where her subjects both disappear and serve as a canvas of reflection. Hidden meanings are woven into every image through the everyday objects and hairstyles inspired by archival photographs. Every image is accompanied by an African proverb, expressing the collected oral wisdom of generations past even as Muriu communicates culture in a visual form.

Alongside CAMO, Muriu will show a new chapter of this series created during her residency in Kyoto. Although she had never visited before, Japan consistently appeared in her research of textile histories. Expanding on this, Muriu incorporates traditional Japanese fabric and prints into her images, exploring the connections and shared histories between Kenyan and Japanese visual languages.

About Program

Juliette Agnel is known for her poetic and metaphysical approach to landscape and light. The French artist explores the relationship between humanity, nature, and the invisible forces that connect them, often working at night or in remote environments such as deserts and glaciers. In these spaces, Agnel captures what she describes as "the vibration of the world". Her practice resonates with philosophical and anthropological themes, reflecting a deep sensitivity to time, mythology, and the presence of light as both a subject and symbol.

At KYOTOGRAPHIE, AgneI will show two colour series made in collaboration with Van Cleef & Arpels, Dahomey Spirit and Susceptibility of Rocks, alongside a new, previously unseen work.

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Through a career of almost sixty years, Daido Moriyama has consistently challenged the conventions of photography.

The Osaka-born photographer has prolifically documented the world around him, challenging the role of cameras, print media, and how we circulate and consume images. This radical approach was shaped by his upbringing in postwar Japan, a society that saw rapid transformation following its defeat in the war and seven years of General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ) occupation that followed. Forming his craft through these critical decades, and influenced by American artists such as Andy Warhol, William Klein and Jack Kerouac, Moriyama used his photography to think about the representation of reality, truth and fiction, memory and history.

This philosophical approach remains deeply contemporary.

In spring, KYOTOGRAPHIE will present a comprehensive survey of Moriyama's oeuvre, adapted from a lauded retrospective curated by Thyago Nogueira at lnstituto Moreira Salles (Brazil) and also presented at C/0 Berlin, The Finnish Museum of Photography, Fotografia Europea (Italy), Photo Elysee (Switzerland) and The Photographer's Gallery in London, where it was chosen by The Guardian as the best photo show of the year. This new rendition is specifically curated for KYOTOGRAPHIE at the coveted Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art. Nogueira is planning a special focus on the countless magazines and publications that have defined Moriyama's artistic life: the photo essays from which many of his most iconic images originate, his contribution to the legendary Provoke magazine, and the radical proposition of his epochal photobook Farewell Photography (1972).

The exhibition was created with the support of Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation and the consultancy of Yutaka Kambayashi, Satoshi Machiguchi, and Kazuya Kimura.

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House of Bondage (1967) by Ernest Cole was one of the first publications to expose the reality of apartheid to the world. Crucially, it was the first lens into the Black experience by a Black photographer.

Born in 1940, Cole became one of the first Black photojournalists in the country, working covertly to capture everything from mine labourers to domestic workers, as well as the state of transport, education and health systems. He took on assignments for DRUM and The New York Times, all the while shooting for House of Bondage.

In 1966, Cole fled South Africa for New York. He published House of Bondage the following year, and as a result was permanently banned from his country. Today, the book remains one of the most influential and profound documents of apartheid, and is credited with unmasking its true atrocities to the world.

This exhibition will feature photographs, magazine covers and personal notes written by Cole himself. It follows the structure of the photographer's original book, divided into 15 thematic chapters. Presented in Japan for the first time, this monumental show will offer a unique opportunity to experience the unflinching honesty of Cole's lasting legacy.

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Where Hugo's earlier projects took the form of visual essays built around defined themes, What the Light Falls On follows a freer approach. Rather than working within a set framework, Hugo responds intuitively to place and time, guided by what he calls an "essential wanderlust". In this work, made over the course of over two decades, portraiture, landscape and still life converge into a conversational and deeply personal reflection on lived and emotional states.

A rumination on mortality is central to this body of work. What the Light Falls On begins with life and ends with death, bookmarked by a photo of his daughter's birth, and his late father on his death bed. "It's tied into middle age," he stated, "getting softer both physically and emotionally, the beauty and the tragedy, the cruelty and the tenderness, these cycles of life. As the philosopher Seneca succinctly observes: 'Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."'

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Atsushi Fukushima is not your average photographer. Since graduating university in 2004, he has worked as a bento delivery driver, a farmer, and trekked the length of Japan - all while photographing the people and places he encountered.

In this exhibition, Fukushima will present a body of work made during the three years he spent working on a farm. "I naturally expected a peaceful life,'' he writes. "But the farm was a completely different world. We were constantly working to raise our labour value, pouring all our resources - money, ideas, and passion - into the work and pushing the business forward. We lived with a sense of challenge and purpose!"

This exhibition marks the project's first major presentation, as well as Fukushima's return to KYOTOGRAPHIE's main programme. In 2020, he exhibited his KG+ SELECT Award-winning project, I Deliver Bento Boxes to the Houses of Old People Living Alone.

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At the last edition of KYOTOGRAPHIE, Sari Shibata was presented the Ruinart Japan Award. As part of the prize, Shibata undertook a residency at the historic champagne house’s headquarters in Reims, France. Watching the seasons shift among its surrounding fields and forests, Shibata created a body of work that follows the story of a woman who grows and matures like a grape.

In her practice, Shibata explores themes of environmental transformation and the impact of human activities. She was raised in a mountain region of Nanto City, Toyama Prefecture, but spent most of her adult life living in cities. This alienation from the natural world inspired her to reflect on humanity and nature through her art.

“I was worn out from work and daily life, but in Reims I was able to return to nature, and realised how deeply moving it could be,” she says. “Within the timeframe of the residency, I was reminded of nature’s uncontrollable power.”

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Working as a duo for over 20 years, Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre are celebrated for their large-format photographs of modern ruins. These include deserted theatres across North America, Japan's abandoned Gunkanjima (Battleship Island), and urban decay across the city of Detroit. In recent years Marchand & Meffre have experimented with Al technology to transform the city of Paris into a post-apocalyptic ruin. In these photos, the Pompidou Centre is rusting, the Louvre's glass pyramids are shattered, and the Moulin Rouge is swallowed by ivy.

At KYOTOGRAPHIE 2026, Marchand & Meffre will show a breadth of their achitectural studies on ruins, presenting images from The Ruins of Detroit, Gunkanjima, and Les Ruines of Paris. In addition, the duo will produce a new body of work in Kyoto, employing the same technique as Paris and using Al to transform the ancient city into a desolate ruin. In this interplay of history and intervention, Marchand & Meffre open conversations about the authenticity of photography, the ability of Al to deceive us, and the thin line between reality and fiction.

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Lebohang Kganye came to photography accidentally. She initially persued journalism, but after failing to get into school she enrolled at David Goldblatt's revered Market Photo Workshop, where she found her calling. Her practice now spans photography, animation, installation, and textile art, with a deep engagement with literature as well as theatre and history.

Kganye presents her first major presentation in Japan at KYOTOGRAPHIE 2026, bringing together five significant bodies of work: Keep the Light Faithfully, Mohlokomedi wa Tora, Mosebetsi wa Dirithi, The Sea Is History and Ke Lefa Laka: Her-story. Together, these series examine how personal and historical narratives are formed, fractured and reimagined.

Through cut-out silhouettes, staged photographs, diorama lightboxes, fabric, shadow and sculptural interventions, Kganye composes layered worlds where fragments of personal histories from South Africa overlap with wider political and postcolonial realities. Across these series, she questions ethics and what it means to inherit an incomplete archive: how we fill gaps, how we protect the histories of others and how fiction can sometimes offer a more honest form of truth.

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