Art and culture can be found in Berlin all year round. With the Berlinale just over, this spring brings another special event: Germany’s largest festival of photographic images is taking place in Berlin for the eleventh time. The EMOP – European Month of Photography – offers the most colourful program with over 100 exhibitions throughout the city throughout March. Almost twice as many institutions take part in the photo festival in Berlin, including museums, galleries, libraries, embassies, photo academies and project spaces – it’s hard to imagine more!
The leitmotif of the photo festival is “what stands between us”. The aim is to shed light on the political tensions of the present and provide a photographic response to the fragility of democracy.
But the best thing is: for four days, all exhibitions and events can be seen for free. From this Thursday, February 27, to Sunday, March 2, the Fotofesitval will open in Berlin and admission is free. In this overview, we show you everything you absolutely must not miss.
Start of the photo festival brings artist talks at the AdK
For the first time, a dedicated festival center was set up at the Akademie der Künste for the opening of the “EMOP”. For the entire weekend, 20 contemporary artists will come together here to talk. There will be film screenings, panel discussions and book presentations. The central festival exhibition and the impressive exhibition “A Village: 1950 – 2022” can also be seen here for free.
📌 Location: Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, 10557 Berlin
🕓 Opening hours: Thursday, February 27: 7 p.m. – midnight, Friday, February 28: 2 p.m. – 10 p.m., Saturday, March 1: 11 a.m. – 8 p.m., Sunday, March 2: 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Photo festival in Berlin offers a place for the young scene
The Young Scene format offers young photographers a voice with the joint exhibition “Meet Me Halfway“. Six renowned educational institutions in the field of photography are taking part and showing their most promising works on social and socio-political topics. The curator will give a personal tour of the exhibition with the students on Sunday at 4 pm.
📌 Location: Leipziger Straße 56, 10117 Berlin
🕓 Opening hours: Saturday, March 1: 6 – 10 p.m., Sunday, March 2: 2 – 7 p.m.
Further free exhibitions: These are the highlights
The photo festival in Berlin brings together renowned artists who are well worth seeing and whose exhibitions often don’t even cost anything. These include the exhibition “The Forest of Trees”, which deals with the observation of patriarchal power structures. Free admission is also available for the Polaroid series on manipulation “After the Shot” or for Johnny Miller’s drone images on ecological injustice. The exhibition “Parallel Realities” is also worth seeing, in which around 30 international artists aim to encourage visitors to reflect on their own reality.
So it certainly won’t be boring: the photo festival in Berlin offers so much art and unique impressions that the time of one month more than does justice to the exhibitions. Many events are often free at the weekends!
📌 Location: This overview shows all the exhibitions at the photo festival in Berlin