Exhibition 2026

Here you can find information about Rotterdam Photo 2026 edition that will take place from March 27 – 29, 2026.

What does conflict do to an artist when they are not an eyewitness, but become a bearer of its emotional resonance? How does violence — whether geopolitical, social, environmental or deeply personal — echo in the minds of those who survive, flee, inherit, imagine or simply sense it from afar?

In “Echoes of Silence”, we explore how war, tension and collective or intimate trauma reverberate in the work of photographers who choose not to use the lens as a recording device, but as a mirror of their inner landscape. At a time when images of crisis circulate endlessly through media and screens, Rotterdam Photo 2026 calls for another approach: introspective, subjective and visually layered perspectives on conflict in all its forms.

This is not a platform for reportage or direct registration of violence. Instead, we seek autonomous photographic work that departs from personal resonance, psychological processing and symbolic representation. Conflict here is not a spectacle, but a condition — something that may take place in memory, family history, migration experiences, ecological change, cultural tension or quiet personal unrest. The lens does not capture an explosion, but the echo of it: silence, emptiness, repetition, fragmentation, friction, or transformation.

We welcome artists for whom conflict is visible or invisible, distant or intimate, historical or unfolding, collective or deeply individual. Whether your work stems from war, displacement, identity struggles, environmental upheaval, intergenerational trauma, social injustice, or internal change, this edition makes space for layered experiences rather than singular narratives.

Cultural and Social Urgency

Across the world, artists are connected — directly or indirectly — to histories of violence, displacement, inequality and transformation. These experiences are universal and multi-layered, and deserve a platform that values nuance over spectacle. Rotterdam, as a city marked by trauma, migration and continuous rebuilding, provides a resonant backdrop where visible and invisible traces of conflict coexist.

We aim for an internationally diverse selection — with particular attention to voices shaped by (post)conflict contexts, diaspora, marginalization or environmental change — and we seek work that surprises, disrupts and quiets, revealing the inner echoes that too often go unspoken.