Photoszene-Festival 2025

The Photoszene-Festival is a biennial photography festival organised by the Internationale Photoszene Köln, which takes place throughout the city of Cologne. Starting with its first edition in 1984, in itself a continuation of the exhibition organised by L. Fritz Gruber for the photokina trade fair, this annual participative festival has established itself and today presents a myriad of exhibi-tions on photography and related visual media. In this way it creates a space for discourse to reflect on current trends in the medium, and to correlate the historical significance of photography with the present day. A key feature of the Internationale Photoszene Köln is its strong collaborative network within the city of Cologne and beyond. The festival's programme is created in cooperation with, among others, the Museum Ludwig, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Photographische Sammlung SK Stiftung Kultur, Kölnisches Stadtmuseum and the Dombaurchiv as well as with inde-pendent art spaces, including: exhibitions and symposia, the Artist Meets Archive project, Pho-toszene Co-Labs!, congresses, the Photoszene Parcours with up to 80 exhibitions, the NEXT! Festival der Jungen Photoszene, the Portfolio Review and a programme of extensive fringe events and guided tours.

The 2025 festival focused on all facets of emotion in photography, thereby defining a specific characteristic that distinguishes humans from Artificial Intelligence. In a post-factual age, however, emotions are also generated, shared, archived and regulated by mass media. Photography – and thus the photographic image – plays a decisive role in social media and media communication. Arousing feelings by looking at a photographic image is the basic principle of advertising, but also of political propaganda or environmental activist movements. Knowledge is power – but emotions are more powerful still. 

As well as attending the festival, the visitors’ programme offered the eight international participants an opportunity to meet and talk to the festival’s artists and curators as well as other key players and institutions work-ing in the field of photography in North Rhine-Westphalia.