With the financial support and under the auspices of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, the Region of Epirus, and the Municipality of Ioannina

Photometria International Photography Festival

18th Edition

Duration: 26.09 – 29.11.2026

Official Opening: 26.09 at 21:00, “Dimitris Hatzis” Cultural Center Theater

The international photography festival Photometria 2026 hosts over 50 artists across 10 locations of historical and artistic interest throughout the city of Ioannina. Photometria Photography Center, the festival’s year-round permanent venue, hosts once again one of the edition’s most iconic exhibitions. The program, as every year, is packed with fresh photographic perspectives, high-caliber lectures, and interactive activities for both visitors and residents of Ioannina. Following the end of the festival, selected exhibitions will travel to various cities across Greece and abroad. Additionally, this year the Photometria Photography Center (PPC) inaugurates the permanent exhibition entitled: “On the thread of time: People and landscapes of Epirus” dedicated to the work of the leading Greek photographer, Kostas Balafas.

Entrance is free to all Festival exhibition venues

 

PERMANENT EXHIBITION

On the Thread of Time: People and Landscapes of the Epirus Region | Costas Balafas

The photography exhibition titled On the Thread of Time: People and Landscapes of the Epirus Region attempts to narrate the work of the eminent Greek photographer Costas Balafas, focusing mainly on the city of Ioannina and its greater area. On display is a small selection of the photographer’s original prints, which were donated to the Photometria Photography Center by Giorgos Balafas, the photographer’s son. The exhibition aims to connect Balafas’ photographs with contemporary life and the memories of the residents, passing on the history of the area to future generations. The exhibition honors the Greek photographer and is being held as part of the 18th edition of Photometria and will be a permanent installation at the new headquarters of the Photometria Photography Center. Heartfelt thanks are due to George Balafas for donating the photographs. Finally, it should be noted that Costas Balafas donated his photographic archive during his lifetime to the Benaki Museum in 2008.

 

 

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Horse Market, Ioannina, Epirus, 1928/31 ©Benaki Museum/Photographic Archives

The rough essence of things | Ellie Papadimitriou [GR]

Curated by: Ioanna Petropoulou | Co-produced by: PIOP, Benaki Museum

The exhibition features photographs taken by Ellie Papadimitriou in Epirus and Macedonia between 1928 and 1931. As an executive of the Refugee Settlement Commission (EAP) and an associate of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies (KMS), she retraces the steps of both expatriates and locals across rural and coastal settlements, equipped with modern cameras. Seeking a language of expression, she constructs a new, firsthand understanding of local heritage. Through her lens, she compiles the primer of both traditional and modern Greece. The conquest of space is carried out using “her own Kodak.” Far beyond any folkloric quaintness, the agricultural scientist documents rural Greece while maintaining a critical distance. A dissenting spirit with a subversive outlook, rejecting spurious exoticism, she acts not as a nature enthusiast, but as an anatomist. Through her ethnological gaze, she aspires to “properly highlight the rough essence of things.”

Byker + Byker Revisited | Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen [FI]

Curated by: Panagiotis Pappas

BYKER (1969 – 1981)

Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s seminal documentation of Byker, the close-knit community of Newcastle upon Tyne pre-destined for wholesale redevelopment, led to national recognition as a key photographic account of a rich working-class culture on the eve of its destruction.

Captivated by the directness of the people and their ability to survive harsh conditions and sweeping changes with dignity and humour, she began to record the Byker community in words and images.

During the following decade Byker gradually fell under the redeveloper’s hammer and its residents had to leave. After seven years of living in the Byker community, Konttinen too lost her home. Like in many of the redevelopments of the sixties and seventies in the UK, it was the destruction not only of homes but of working-class culture and networks of long-established relationships that could not be replaced by the new schemes.

BYKER REVISITED (2003 – 2009)

Discovering that the original Byker exhibition was being utilised to introduce new arrivals to Byker and its historic sense of identity, in 2003 Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen was invited to photograph Byker and its people again. The famed Byker Wall Estate, the longest housing complex in Europe at the time of its building, was now housing a multicultural and more transient population. She found a few of the original families for whom the estate was designed, some of whom she had photographed as children. But perhaps because she had been a foreigner in the original Byker, she found herself particularly drawn to its newly arrived asylum seekers and refugees.

Over the following six-year period Konttinen developed the portraits in close collaboration with over 100 individuals and families. She invited them to imagine their lives, each in ‘just one picture’ as a way of introducing themselves to their neighbours and the wider world. Having lost its original community, this was a playful way of creating a virtual new community with its current residents in the new Byker.

A Couple of Photos | Dimitris Mougos [GR]

Curated by: Dimitris Mougos, Panagiotis Pappas

The exhibition A Couple of Photos by Dimitris Mougos is a photographic narrative exploring collective memory, friendship, and artistic practice. For years, Mougos has documented an ensemble of people and relationships—a creative circle of collaborators and companions navigating Thessaloniki’s urban landscape, music production, and live concerts—demonstrating how a sustained photographic pursuit operates simultaneously as an act of record-keeping and an alternative construction of reality. Everyday moments, urban scenes, and gatherings are woven into narrative form. The lines dividing documentary from aesthetic inquiry, public from private space, and present from past remain deliberately porous. The photographs do not aim to freeze the objective truth of an instant, but rather to trace what endures: music, camaraderie, and creation. In this regard, the project functions less as a formal archive and more as an homage to companionship and shared life—reflecting a generation that turned to community as an antidote to urban alienation.

Pleasure Points | Alastair Philip Wiper [IE]

Curated by: Panagiotis Pappas

Pleasure Points takes viewers on an exploratory journey through California’s adult novelty industry—ranging from sex doll manufacturing ateliers and family-run intimacy device factories to virtual reality pornography film sets. The series captures the variety, ingenuity, and advanced engineering underlying these products, while revealing how people are reclaiming agency over their sexuality and identity: determining where, how, and when they seek pleasure. Through network connectivity, couples can operate one another’s devices remotely. Bespoke sex dolls feature extensive customization options, including motorized robotic heads. VR productions place the viewer right inside the environment. Threading through these developments is a fundamental pivot: a transition away from reliance on another person toward tools and spaces people construct for themselves.

Blueprints | Javier Talavera [ES]

Curated by: Panagiotis Pappas | In collaboration with: Experimental Photo Festival | With the support of: Embassy of Spain in Greece

Blueprints is an exercise that explores the body and its representation, a search for that which persists beyond the physical presence.

Love letters from the war | Hanno Ketterer [DE]

Curated by: Panagiotis Pappas | Co-produced by: Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Thessaloniki, International Photography Festivals Association | With the support of: Gallery 3PORTES

During the Second World War, Hanno Ketterer’s grandfather sent letter after letter to his beloved wife. Nearly a thousand of these letters have survived. Written by a German soldier on the Eastern Front, they reveal the inner life of an ordinary man in dark times. In one of the letters he asks himself why the people he meets should be his enemies. He noticed fleeting moments of beauty and held on to love, showing a different kind of courage. Through these intimate reflections, we are reminded that even under the harshest circumstances, our response to the world is still a choice. In Love Letters from the War (Kehrer Verlag, 2025), Ketterer brings together the letters with black and white photographs and drawings by his grandfather. Building on these historical traces, he created new images, generated with AI and reworked by hand, depicting episodes that were never photographed but are vividly described in the letters. He also made a nine-minute film combining authentic archival material with these newly envisioned scenes. In the film, Ketterer reads excerpts from the letters.

Alone, Between Sky and Earth | Christos Sotiropoulos [GR]

Curated by: Christos Sotiropoulos, Panagiotis Pappas

The exhibition Alone, Between Sky and Earth begins with three photobooks by Christos Sotiropoulos, but it does not present them as separate sections. Photographs, texts, archival traces, and book-objects are brought into the space and organized as a new exhibition sequence.
The narrative moves from sites of faith and signs of presence to social scenes, portraits, solitary figures, fields, labor, water, and roads. Centered on Ilia, the exhibition does not try to define rural Greece as a whole. It follows one place through photographs, captions, clippings, a private postcard, and a reconstructed exhibition document.
The title comes from a newspaper excerpt. It carries the weight of its original context, while opening a wider reading: human figures and places between faith, absence, memory, and land. The archive table acts as a small pause, where images meet evidence, private voices, and silences.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Vicky Georgiou

Biogeographies

Curated by: Hercules Papaioannou | In collaboration with: MOMus Thessaloniki Museum of Photography

The exhibition presents the work of three contemporary Greek visual artists, united by personal lived experience and its resonance within physical terrain. Past and present, tangible matter and spiritual inquiry, memory and conscious awareness, observational documentation and staging engage in conversation across the long-term photographic explorations of Vicky Georgiou, Vassilis Nempegleriotis, and Stratis Vogiatzis. Through interior journeys tracing their native lands, their work reveals latent landscapes resting in plain sight, marking the crossroads where private narratives intersect with collective memory, and geography converges with personal history.

Kampos | Stratis Vogiatzis [GR]

In the Kampos plain of Chios, historic estates stand enveloped by citrus orchards cultivated for over seven centuries. In Kampos (2017–2022), Stratis Vogiatzis acts as a narrator guiding the viewer through the territory by interweaving photographic frames with prose, historical records, and artifacts—capturing spoken accounts while generating scenes that oscillate between historical record and staged intervention. Similarly, the written excerpts blend personal memory with folklore and historical fact, uncovering subtle dimensions of reality secluded behind orchard walls. The series attends to the character of the place, its interactions with local fauna and terrain, and the reciprocal relationship between wilderness and human civilization. Vogiatzis constructs what he terms “composted narratives,” using artistic assembly to recycle and reconcile complex perceptions of his birthplace. The work offers an investigative study of Kampos’ nuanced history, shaped by alternating eras of prosperity and quiet decline, while probing the porous boundaries between factual document and narrative fiction.

Plains Stories | Vassilis Nempegleriotis [GR]

Few environments illuminate the connection between civilization and nature as vividly as agricultural plains—the stage for intensive farming practices that reshaped societal structures. Vassilis Nempegleriotis’ series Plains Stories (2017–2023) examines the Thessalian plain, Greece’s primary agricultural basin, which has historically served as both an engine of prosperity and an arena of social divide (symbolized by the Kileler monument). Raised in an agricultural family, Nempegleriotis investigates the modern reality of the plain: the uninterrupted horizon of the flat terrain, its relative quiet following mechanization, agricultural plots repurposed for solar energy generation, migrant laborers who form the backbone of the contemporary rural workforce, and the geometric imprints left by human activity upon natural cycles. His photography utilizes open negative space to capture environmental shifts, drawing out threads of social history and highlighting how this landscape remains a baseline for local daily life amidst modern climate pressures.

The Backyard | Vicky Georgiou [GR]

Returning to her birthplace after years away, Vicky Georgiou gathers fragments of unspoken family narratives and quiet memories to reconstruct the past, seeking to mend the perceived voids of childhood memory, time, and distance. Reflecting on her father’s past as a skilled shepherd and her parents’ decision to emigrate across the world, she observes her children playing in the garden, picturing life in the “backyard”—one of the few English words brought back from their years in Australia. Using photographs as an adhesive element alongside family letters, holiday cards, and garments, she poses enduring questions about family, migration, homecoming, and the conscious choice to revisit personal memory.

Photometria Awards 2026: Coming of age (18+) | Judged by Alec Soth

Marylise Vigneau [AT] – Hello, Sunshine // Wenxuan Li [JP] – When Two Hands Quietly Descend // Alice Mann [UK] – Excelsior // Simon Johansson [SE] – Untitled // Simon Johansson [SE] – Untitled // Dimitra Basamaki [GR] – In case I forget // Byeongbeom Kim [AU] – Almost Grown Ups // Anna Zhuk [DE] – Holding Memory // Panagiotis Chloptsidis [GR] – The loss // Dimitris Kyrousis [GR] – The Metamorphosis // Vasilis Ntaopoulos [GR] – Outdoor Haircut // Ekansh Mehta [IN] – The Leap Into Tomorrow // Pamela Hanlan [US] – Layla // Alexandros Momtsos [GR] – Wedding Day (Portrait of a Second Son) // Ioanna Fragkostefanaki [GR] – MAM, KAKA & NANI // Alexandros Kazamias [GR] – You taught me how to leave // Dylan Budge [UK] – Space to Play // Regina Korkovelou [GR] – One two fools // Marina Satanaki [GR] – You’ve been here before I // Marina Satanaki [GR] – You’ve been here before II // Bjorn Nilsson [SE] – Samtal Misslyckades (Communication breakdown) // L A D [IT] – Inside, Out There // Zhigang Ye [UK] – Taste Like Salsedine // Elena Paraskeva [CY] – The Girls of In Between // Sotiris Chasiotis [GR] – The weight of growth

Marking its 18th edition, the festival reaches a milestone of maturity, engaging with core themes of personal transition. Coming of Age (18+) examines adulthood not as a calendar threshold or legal designation, but as an evolving human condition shaped by internal shifts, social reconfigurations, and assertions of agency. Innocence evolves rather than vanishes, while the individual emerges as an autonomous, self-aware subject. The physical body becomes an arena of expression, desire, and boundaries, while personal identities remain in open negotiation. The concept navigates the space between youth and accountability, where play coexists with consequence. “Permitted” and “forbidden” function not merely as formal rules, but as internal thresholds under constant revision, inviting viewers to reflect on whether maturity is a static destination or an ongoing state of reassessment.

Parallel Voices

The exhibition “Parallel Voices 2026” brings together nine contemporary photographers from Greece and abroad, selected through an open call to present their individual portfolios. The theme “Parallel Voices” does not seek uniformity or homogeneity. Instead, it highlights the importance of plurality and the coexistence of parallel visual voices, approaches, and aesthetic perspectives. Each participating portfolio forms an autonomous visual world, while simultaneously becoming part of a collective dialogue around the contemporary image. This year’s participants, Alex Bex (FR/US), Giuseppe Cardoni (IT), Vladimir Karamazov (BG), Sveta Kaverina (RU), Sarah Malakoff (US), Kirill Muniabin (RU), Stefanos Paikos (GR), Danae Panagiotidi (GR), and Giorgos
Stergiopoulos (GR), present works that engage with the present, at times through narrative coherence and at others through more abstract or experimental visual languages. The result is a multifaceted exhibition that invites viewers to recognise the richness of photographic practice not only as an aesthetic proposition, but also as a way of interpreting the world. This section does more than showcase emerging voices; it proposes a different way of experiencing photography—as an act of critical reflection, emotional engagement, and meaningful positioning within the public
sphere of the image.

Alex Bex (FR/US) — “Memories of Dust”

Memories of Dust is a post-documentary photographic project that explores the codes of traditional masculinity in my home state of Texas. I question the figure of the cowboy, a male icon shaped
by the media, and its place within an American society undergoing profound transformation. By traveling across Texas and immersing myself in the daily lives of the ranching community, I seek to move beyond this fixed image. My photographs focus on ordinary gestures and moments of vulnerability among men that are rarely shown, offering a more honest and nuanced perspective on the contemporary rancher, in order to encourage meaningful conversations about the representation of traditional madculinit and its changing role.

Giuseppe Cardoni (IT) — “The Magic of the Circus”

The circus is a large extended family in which acrobats, jugglers, clowns, ecc. are all more or less related to each other like a community held together not only by affection but also by the great passion for their work (or rather their «Art»). My main interest was to tell more about the atmospheres than the «performers» by focusing on the moments of preparation, pause, rehearsal,
concentration, rather than the show which is however mentioned. In this way it seemed to me to preserve at least in part the mystery, the amazement and the magic that captures the spectator when the curtain opens.

Vladimir Karamazov (BG) — “In Their Place”

For me, one of the most global pandemics of our society is that everyone judges others without knowing anything about them. In doing so, they categorically condemn them. Ninety percent of people serving sentences in prison are individuals who experienced something broken in their childhood for which they are not to blame. Something tragic happened, leaving a mark on their lives. In most cases, this is a lack of love, family, basic needs, and education. There are millions of children born with the awful fate of being nobodies. They have no choice but to survive as best they can. When these children reach adulthood, they become prisoners. They become those that society is ready to destroy because they are seen as the bad ones. But are they truly the bad ones, or is society also to blame for how they ended up there?

Sveta Kaverina (RU) — “The Three of Us”

The Three of Us is a mockumentary project rooted in a little-known strand of Soviet history: the belief that death could be conquered and a new kind of human engineered. Scientific speculation about resurrecting the dead even shaped the preservation of Vladimir Lenin’s body. The project imagines a secret experiment born from these ambitions. It does not resurrect Lenin; instead, it produces three cloned girls – disoriented, unclaimed, and unfit for propaganda. When the USSR collapses, the program is abandoned, leaving them to navigate a world they were never meant to inherit. At once fictional characters and metaphors, the clones embody fractured identities shaped by political upheaval. Their parallel lives reflect the inner multiplicity carried by those who grew up through collapse, migration, and enforced reinvention. Through them, the project gives form to overlapping voices – personal, historical, and ideological – that continue to shape the world we inhabit.

Sarah Malakoff (US) — “Personal History”

In Personal History, I look closely at objects displayed within American homes that reference history and culture. These items may speak to the ancestral lineage of the occupant, a co-opting of
others’ stories, or an aspirational identity. Whether representations of historical figures or events, the possessions point to a longing for connection to the past and an engagement with the world at large. Often the collections of objects underscore the privilege and power implicit in the act of collecting. The souvenirs resonate with the other possessions and architecture that surround them, uneasily vacillating between heroism and kitsch, patriotism and colonialism.

Kirill Muniabin (RU) — “MENlancholy”

The generally accepted image of a man is more associated with the multiplicity of romantic relationships throughout life. This is considered a normal behavioral attribute of a “real” man. But a critical look at the problem of masculinity shows that the situation is not so clear-cut. This project is about the fates of men who, regardless of age and social status, voluntarily or not remain without relationships. Men beyond gender stereotypes. Men who return home every evening where no one is waiting for them. Except for loneliness, which everyone lives in their own way.

Stefanos Paikos (GR) — “Reaching for Dusk”

Reaching for Dusk challenges dominant media narratives around migration by focusing not on arrival, but on what comes before. It traces the early stages of displacement across Africa—places
like the Mbeubeuss landfill in Senegal or abandoned warehouses in Tunisia—where people wait, work, and prepare for uncertain journeys. The project combines documentary photography with geospatial research to show how environmental collapse, economic desperation, and colonial legacies converge to shape movement long before borders are crossed. Rather than offering a spectacle of crisis, Reaching for Dusk seeks to render visible the systems and decisions that filter human lives before they are ever seen.

Danai Panagiotidi (GR) — “We Live Inside a Dream”

We Live Inside a Dream explores liminality—those in-between states where perception becomes unstable and reality appears fragmented, fluid, or doubled. The work moves between presence and absence, body and image, consciousness and its fading edges. The project began as a personal response to the artist’s mother’s experience of altered states of consciousness, exploring memories and visions suspended between reality, memory, and imagination. Informed by research into consciousness and Near-Death Experiences, the work moves between documentation and inner landscape, observation and emotional metaphor. The photographs inhabit a suspended space where time slows, boundaries soften, and identity becomes fluid. Liminality becomes not simply a
passage, but a state of becoming—an invitation to reflect on transition, transformation, and the unseen forces that shape our sense of reality.

Giorgos Stergiopoulos (GR) — “The wall fell but nobody noticed”

This photographic series constitutes a visual document of Karditsa, a city in western Thessaly which, despite its past periods of prosperity, currently faces a prolonged economic and social crisis.
Through a critical lens, the work records both the structural causes of this decline – political and economic – and its aesthetic manifestations: the decay, abandonment, and isolation that characterize its urban space. Concurrently, it functions as a visual commentary on the dynamics between landscape and society, serving as a reminder that, as W. J. T. Mitchell observed, landscape is not merely a visible object, but a space of dynamic interaction with human existence, history, and memory.

“Double Reality (Art Paper editions)” – Tom Callemin

Φωτοbooks

Featured Publications: “Only have faith” – Adel Koleszar, “Lusaka Street” – Alick Phiri, “Frases Mínimas Baja” – Ana Lía, “Dancing Your Dream Awake” – Anita Andrzejewska, “Ussaro” – Antonio Rosato, “Eight Points” – David Salcedo, “Splinter” – Ela Polkowska, “Deutsches in Deutschland” – Eoin Moylan, “Diaries” – Francesco Zizola, “Hear you Athens” – Georges Salameh, “Under the mulberry trees” – Giuseppe Riccardi, “Borders” – Grigoris Digas, “Babcia” – Jana Gertz, “Tomorrow” – Jiyan Céline Schmidiger, “Fumes of Mars” – Katerina Angelopoulou, “Don’t Worry, I’m Fine” – Maryna Syrovatka, “The Australian Journey” – Regina Maria Anzenberger, “Provisoria” – Ria Verhaeghe, “As Real as it Gets” – Thomas Nolf, “Double Reality” – Tom Callemin, “The Only Dream” – Vincent Duluc David, “Pogo” – Viridiana Morandini, “Uncertainties” – Yihan Pan & José Cárdenas Lorca, “The Internal Crusade” – Zexuan Zeng, “Faërie” – Zhou Yang

The «Photometria Φωτοbooks» exhibition highlights the creativity and talent of the photographers who stood out in the competition of the same name. The 25 best books selected are unique works of art, each telling a unique story through their images. The variety of subjects and techniques captures the diversity of contemporary photography and the dynamics of artistic expression.
Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to navigate through the pages of these books, discovering personal narratives, social commentary, and artistic explorations. Each book is a portal to a different world, offering an experience that combines visual pleasure with deep introspection. The exhibition, hosted at the Photometria Photography Center, is not just a presentation of the award-winning works, but a celebration of contemporary photographic publishing.

Lida Theodora Veniamin

Youth Collective

Participating Artists: Anastasia Nakou, Anna Pournara, Archontoula Petraki, Cristian Iacono, Efthymia Athanasiou, Iara Silva Sanchez, Jeremy Mosniagka, Konstantinos Zontanos, Lida Theodora Veniamin

Curated by: Chara Sklika

Photography, as both an aesthetic and sociological medium, has always held the power to capture the fleeting and transform it into something rich with meaning. Within the framework of the
Youth Collective program, young creators aged 18–25 are invited to develop a visual proposal without thematic constraints—a mirror reflecting personal, collective, and at times existential explorations. The exhibition is the result of an open selection process, where diverse styles, themes, and technical approaches come together to form a polyphonic whole. In line with the broader philosophy of the Photometria Festival, the Youth Collective seeks to highlight the role of youth creativity not as a marginal or “experimental” phase, but as a vital field of cultural production. It embodies a tangible, experiential photographic language that draws from today’s lived experience while engaging in dialogue with contemporary image theory. The images in this exhibition stand as testimonies to the gaze of a generation that is reshaping the terms of visibility. Through them, photography ceases to be merely a means of representation; it becomes an act of resistance, at
times of remembrance, often of questioning—and almost never of answering.

Maria Voyiatzaki

Entefxis Photography Network

Participating Collectives: Ptolemaida F22 Photography Team, Kavala Photography Club, Metapolis, Out of Focus, Shashin Lovers, Antithesis, Apellis, Asto, Efodos, Hdyfos, Kadro, Creative Photography Center of Thrace, Heraklion Club, Larissa Club, “Deka” Photography Group, FOA, Paros Photography Group, FOSPI, Corinth Photography Club, Katerini Photography Group, Photoresearchers, Photokyttaro

The photography exhibition «Entefxis Photography Network» brings together various photography groups from all over Greece, each with its own unique theme and perspective. From portraits
and landscapes, to street and conceptual photography, the participants’ images offer a multi-dimensional portrayal of the contemporary amateur photography scene in Greece. The Entefxis Photography Network – EPN coordinates this effort, creating a platform of expression and collaboration for photography enthusiasts across the country, with the city of Ioannina as the meeting point.