“To be 20 is to believe that everything is beginning” (and it is often true). If there is one intention behind this anniversary of Getxophoto, it is surely that of imagining its rebirth. For its twentieth anniversary, the festival does more than celebrate its history; it reaffirms its taste for exploration and for the issues that question our time.
Founded by Begihandi Kultur Elkartea (Jokin Aspuru), the festival was launched in 2007 and is therefore preparing to celebrate, in May-June 2026, its two decades of existence. Since then, more than 350 visual artists from around the world have been presented there, mainly in public space — public squares, markets, façades and the seafront — through unexpected media and formats, the event’s emblematic signature.
After the themes PAUSE, PLAY and REC, which structured the three previous editions, the new one revolves around an obvious word: RESET. An injunction to relaunch the system, to reboot. This edition, the last directed by the Bilbao-based artistic programmer María Ptqk, will bring together projects exploring mutations and recycling, as much as cycles and narratives of recommencement.
Among the invited artists, Cristina de Middel returns, seventeen years after her first participation, with Snap Fingers and Whistle. In it, she revisits the film West Side Story, a visual icon of New York, reenacting its scenes sometimes shot by shot, with an assumed artificiality. This gesture questions both the boundaries of street photography and the capacity of visual language to reinvent itself.
For her part, Chloé Azzopardi develops a practice combining photography, performance and installation. Her research, centered on ecology through desires and imaginaries, takes shape through a series of hybrid objects. Branches, shells, stones, flowers or glass compose a set of artifacts evoking electronic devices. So many organic and poetic forms that question the real usefulness of technologies and invite us to reconsider their impact on our perceptions.
Born in 1998 in Nantong, China, Yuxing Chen is an artist divided between London and Shanghai. His practice acutely examines the historical and contemporary dimensions of chinoiserie. His project The Oriental Scene, winner of the Open Call Getxophoto 2026, focuses on the singular history of a replica of the famous Porcelain Tower of Nanjing, erected in the eighteenth century in the gardens of Kew in London. After the destruction of the original tower in the nineteenth century, this reproduction remains the only vestige of this spectacular 80-meter-high white porcelain pagoda, built during the Ming dynasty.
Other artists presented: Eugenia Maximova, Gohar Dashti, Mark Formanek,
Yao Lu, Mohamed Hassan, Lisa Barnad etc…
Getxophoto 2026 does not merely explore its annual theme through a diversity of perspectives; it also applies this principle of resetting to itself. It brings back into the spotlight works presented in previous editions, through new exhibition formats, alongside a rich selection of archives. This RESET, at once introspective and outward-looking, celebrates the path traveled and pays tribute to a collective adventure. The festival has managed to evolve without losing its original idea: to offer photography that is accessible, rooted in the city and open to contemporary perspectives. A way of relaunching the system, of gathering momentum again, before embarking on a new journey; a journey that the public is invited, more than ever, to continue alongside the Festival.
Jean-Jacques Ader
20th Getxophoto Festival from May 28 to June 21, in Getxo (Biscay, Spain)
Information: https://www.getxophoto.com/en/
