Cape Town, South Africa this September, the Mother City becomes the lens through which the world views heritage, memory, and identity. The Cape Town Photography Festival will run from 4 to 27 September 2025, coinciding with South Africa’s Heritage Month, and promises to be a landmark cultural event for the city and the continent.
The festival’s debut edition brings together a rich, global lineup of exhibitions, talks, workshops, and projections inpublic spaces— all centred around the transformative power of photography in documenting, interpreting, and preserving heritage.
“Heritage is a powerful connection between past, present, and future. It fosters a sense of belonging, grounding individuals in their place and time, while helping us understand where we come from and who we are” says Festival Director, Heidi Erdmann.
A Greater City-Wide Celebration of Photography
The festival will feature historically important and contemporary exhibitions in major galleries and cultural spaces across Cape Town. Some of the highlights include:
- Attached to the American photographer Peter Glendinning’s collaborative project with young people in South Africa. Simonstown Museum.
- District Six through the lens of Jansje Wissema (c1970). Cape Institute for
- Shooting Stars. Music photography. Rafs Mayet, Frank Marshall, Jurgen Schadeberg, Gregory Franz, Guy Tillimand Rashid Lombard at 6 Spin Street
- Family Album. A solo exhibition by Naoya Yoshikawa at WORLDART Gallery.
- Future Mohau Modisakeng (South Africa), Ahn Jun (South Korea), Koo Gi Jeong (South Korea) & Boris Eldagsen (Germany). Curated by Suok-Won Yoon (South Korea). Aspire Art Showroom.
- Stranger in a Strange Land, a solo exhibition by Roger Central Library.
- Mauritian Curated by Karen Pang & Meha Desai with Audrey Albert, Melisa Madanamootoo, David Rogers, Catherine Li, Laurant de Froberville & Javed Jeetoo. Alliance Français Gallery.
“Cape Town has a rich history of celebrating photography, having hosted the Month of Photography festival from the late 1990s until 2014. Since then, the photographic landscape in South Africa has evolved significantly, with a newgeneration of artists using the medium to explore urgent social, political, and environmental issues. The city itself has also grown as a cultural hub, now home to two new private museums that reflect its expanding commitment to the arts” (Heidi Erdmann / Festival Director).
