This year’s festival theme “Afterimage” gathers works that explore memory and continuity, with a lineup including Filipino artist and conservationist Gab Mejia.
Nuanu Creative City—a 44-hectare ecosystem designed as an incubator for culture, creativity, and innovation—hosts the second edition of the FOTO Bali Festival, bringing together artists from around the world and across diverse photographic practices in an open dialogue free from geographical and generational boundaries.
The 2026 edition, running from June 3 to July 12, features 36 artists selected from nearly 700 submissions spanning over 80 countries. Among them is Lifestyle Asia April 2026 cover star Gab Mejia, whose project White Water explores the intersection of memory, colonial history, and rising sea levels across the Philippine archipelago. Using flood-damaged family archives and narratives from coastal communities affected by climate change, the work showcases the ways in which shifting shorelines challenged our fixed notions of identity, borders, and history.
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Afterimage: How Moments Live On
The festival accepted only five percent of the total submissions in a highly competitive process covering works from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Oceania, picking works that best aligned with this year’s theme, “Afterimage,” which explores the ways images persist beyond the moment they’re captured through memory and continuity.
Moving between personal narratives and broader reflections on history, identity, and collective experience, the selected projects consider how photographs keep shaping meaning over time.
“In the context of Afterimage, photography does not conclude a moment—it continues to circulate and shape how we remember the world,” shares Putu Sridiniari, Curator of FOTO Bali Festival, in a statement. “The selected works reflect diverse approaches, yet share a common attentiveness to how images carry traces and influence our understanding of the present.”
Meet The Featured Artists Of FOTO Bali Festival 2026
The 36 artists chosen for the FOTO Bali Festival 2026 hail from 24 countries. The line-up includes:
- Akshay Mahajan (India)
- Alessandro Bo (Mexico)
- Anita Khemka & Imran Kokiloo (India)
- Aprillio Abdullah Akbar (Indonesia)
- Arhant Shrestha (Nepal)
- Aziziah Diah Aprilya (Indonesia)
- Bertha Wang (China)
- Ceicillia Dita (Indonesia)
- Charmaine de Heij (Netherlands/Suriname)
- Chiara Goia (Italy)
- Chloe Bartram (Australia)
- Daniela Balestrin (Brazil)
- Gab Mejia (Philippines)
- Gianluca Lanciai (Italy)
- Ha Dao (Vietnam)
- Igor Schiller (Serbia)
- Jiatong Lu (China)
- Joel Jimenez (Costa Rica)
- Joyantee Raina (Bangladesh)
- Kate Perfilieva (Russia)
- Keyza Widiatmika (Indonesia)
- Kibe Nduni (Kenya)
- Lars Dyrendom & Inuk Jørgensen (Denmark/Greenland)
- Made Virgie Avianthy (Indonesia)
- Martín Bollati (Argentina)
- Muhammad Dwiki Viansa (Indonesia)
- Nadège Mazars (France)
- Nicolás Bernal (Colombia)
- Primagung D. Riliananda (Indonesia)
- Rodrigo Illescas (Argentina)
- Santiago Escobar-Jaramillo (Colombia)
- Sean Cham (Singapore)
- Valeria Arendar (Argentina/Mexico)
- Vinit Gupta (India)
- Wimadetra (Indonesia)
- Yuki Furusawa (Japan)
Eight Indonesian will also be joining the international roster, further strengthening FOTO Bali Festival through the inclusion of local perspectives within a larger conversation.
“The qualities and approaches reflected in these works align with what we envisioned when the theme was first introduced,” explains Kurniadi Widodo, Curator of FOTO Bali Festival. “We aim to present practices that demonstrate both strong commitment and a diversity of visual languages within contemporary photography.”
FOTO Bali Festival will take place at Nuanu Creative City, Bali, Indonesia, from June 3 to July 13, 2026. For more information and updates, visit its official website or follow its Instagram @fotobalifestival.
Photos courtesy of Nuanu Creative City
Frequently Asked Questions
The FOTO Bali Festival is an international photography event hosted at Nuanu Creative City, bringing together artists from around the world across diverse photographic practices in an open dialogue that transcends geographical and generational boundaries.
The 2026 edition will run from June 3 to July 12, 2026, in Bali, Indonesia.
This year’s theme, “Afterimage,” explores how images persist beyond the moment they are captured—focusing on memory, continuity, and the ways photography continues to shape meaning over time.
The festival features 36 artists selected from nearly 700 submissions across over 80 countries, including Filipino artist Gab Mejia, whose project White Water examines memory, colonial history, and rising sea levels in the Philippines.
