Welcome to Festival Zone for November 2025.

Festival 2026 theme announced

We are delighted to announce our theme for the 2026 Festival is 'Movement' [Kori]. Get planning and join us for the 23rd edition of the annual Festival.

Auckland Festival of Photography [whakaahua hākari] is NZ's premium international photographic festival, providing a diverse and inclusive platform, for the exchange of ideas, artistic expression, and engagement with photography and visual culture. Open call for submissions for our Festival starts in early February, deadline for the expressions of interest is late March 2026.

We are open to programming any project created through the medium of photography and encourage active participation from a broad spectrum of artistic talent and practice including established career professionals, image inspired amateurs and emerging/young photographers.

Movement [Kori] in photography is more than the trace of motion; it is the measure of change—within the body, the home, the landscape, and the world itself. To photograph movement is to acknowledge that nothing stands still: that light shifts, people migrate, animals’ traverse, and the Earth itself is in constant motion.

More here on our 'Movement' [Kori] theme.

Image below - Morgan Huffman; Attention-Deficit-2025

The Festival has been curating an annual suite of themed exhibitions, events and talks since 2014. We do this by invitation and commissions, plus we joint programme with curators, galleries and artists.

Image above - Sungtaek Park; Dynamic Energy of K Pop

Artist announced – 2025 Creator Kōwhai Residency in Yōga, Tokyo

The Festival Trust are delighted to announce the recipient of our next Creator 2025 Kōwhai Residency in Yōga, Tokyo is William Linscott, from Auckland. The Residency supports travel to Japan for the selected artist, self-contained accommodation in Yōga, Tokyo and a weekly stipend so they can fully immerse in their project. They also have the opportunity to meet Japanese artists and educators to further absorb the knowledge from working artists’ lives in Tokyo. The Kōwhai Residency is an excellent opportunity for a comprehensive learning experience in a large, vibrant, multi-cultural city and our 6th placement and the perfect step for an international encounter in Japan to soak up the city and also gain knowledge from Japanese practitioners.

William says “Taking part in the Creator Kōwhai Residency is a thoroughly exciting prospect. I am very grateful for this opportunity to immerse myself in a new context and engage in new ways of working.”

Image above by William Linscott, What happens next will warm your heart . Still from Video installation, from exhibition For better and for worse, 2024.

“I am interested in exploring the social imaginary of ‘technology’, and at the same time, the social imaginaries produced by ‘technology’. My intention is to develop composite images (utilising original images shot in person in Tokyo, found material, and other animated elements) in an attempt to create ‘cuts’ or ‘breaks’ of other kinds that reveal the infrastructures of technology as loci for social abstraction.”

William Linscott is an artist and educator who lives in Tāmaki Makaurau. He recently completed a doctorate at Elam School of Fine Arts, culminating with the exhibition "For better and for worse" at George Fraser Gallery (2024). In 2023 William participated in the Maumaus Independent Study Programme and had a residency at Hangar, Centro de Investigação Artística, both in Lisboa, Portugal.

2025 Kōwhai Residency in Yōga, Tokyo is an exclusive NZ photography residency programme established from New Zealand. The Festival team were delighted with the response to the 6th Kōwhai Residency in Yōga, Tokyo call for applications. Thanks to everyone who took time to apply.

Made possible by the generous support of the Auckland Festival of Photography, and our support programme partner in Japan, Tokyo Institute of Photography/T3 Photo Festival Tokyo.

Volunteers 2026 Festival