T3 Photo Festival Tokyo 2026

Details

June 16, 2026, Tokyo ー T3 Photo Festival Tokyo, one of Asia’s leading international photography festivals, will return from October 3 – 26, 2026, with a preview day on October 2, 2026, transforming the urban landscape of Tokyo’s Yaesu, Nihonbashi, Kyobashi and Ginza districts, where office towers, commercial complexes and public spaces converge, into a citywide platform for photography.

Now in its eighth edition, the photo festival will host special exhibitions under the theme “&（と）”, exploring photography’s capacity to connect seemingly opposing forces and reveal new relationships across cultures, histories and lived experiences.

Exhibition plan

The festival will host two main exhibitions and more than 10 special exhibitions. One of the two main exhibitions, Constant Bloom by Lucas Foglia, will be presented at Tokyo Midtown Yaesu. The exhibition follows the longest butterfly migration across continents, pairing photographs of Painted Lady butterflies with portraits of people they encounter. Tracing routes shaped by changing weather and political borders, the prints offer a hopeful vision of a delicate, interconnected and resilient world.

The special exhibitions include Dutch photographer Sarah van Rij’s Atlas of Echoes (tentative title), creating a site-responsive exhibition spanning indoor and outdoor locations in Nihonbashi. Known for her dreamlike images that blur the line between reality and memory, van Rij’s work will enter into dialogue with Tokyo’s urban landscape and architecture. Following last year’s successful co-curation between the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) and T3 photo Festival, STUDIO + Expanding Contemporary Photography #2 presents works by British artist Antony Cairns and Chinese artist PIDAN. The exhibition examines how photography continues to evolve beyond the traditional boundaries of image-making into expanded forms of installation, information and material practice. Another duo exhibition will bring together two Japanese artists, Nozomi Suzuki and Sayaka Uehara, whose practices engage with memory embedded in landscapes, exploring photography as a medium that reconnects past and present, place and experience.

The complete exhibition list will be announced in early August.

T3 initiatives

T3 comprises three core initiatives: the festival T3 Photo Festival Tokyo, the photo fair T3 Photo Asia and a talent development program T3 New Talent. And the theme, “&” (と), will serve as a unifying concept across all projects.

T3 Photo Asia will take place from October 17 – 19, 2026, with a preview day on October 16, where galleries will gather to foster and elevate photographic culture in Asia. The T3 Talk Program and T3 Book Marche will run concurrently, further enriching the festival and the fair, bringing together artists, curators, publishers and audiences from around the world.

T3 Talk Program will bring together leading figures from the international photography world, and develop the dialogue between Japanese and International photography from October 17 – 19, 2026. Guest speakers are:

● Florian Ebner, curator of Photography Collection at Centre Pompidou
● Julie Jones, director of Fotografiska New York
● Drew Sawyer, curator of the Whitney Museum
● Yichen Zhao, curator of the Department of Photography, Art Institute of Chicago
(More guests to be announced.)

The T3 Book Marche will take place on October 17 – 18, 2026, during T3 Photo Asia, bringing together emerging artists and publishers for whom the photobook is central to their creative practice. The photo fair will present a diverse range of publications, offering visitors an opportunity to explore the evolving landscape of contemporary photobook and print culture in Asia.

Launched to discover and support contemporary artists and curators capable of working on the world stage, T3 New Talent presents the exhibition Five Views at the Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris (www.mcjp.fr), from October 6 – November 14, 2026. The participating artists are THE COPY TRAVELERS, Kenji Chiga, Mayumi Suzuki, Eri Minamikawa, and Shohei Miyachi. Each approaches photography from their own distinctive perspective, developing expressions that explore connections between thought, narrative and society.

About T3

T3 is a Tokyo-based International platform for Asian photography culture launched in 2017 and built on three pillars: a festival, a fair and a talent development program. T3 PHOTO FESTIVAL TOKYO (2018-) is a photography festival that brings international artists to Tokyo, providing a platform for the presentation and creation of their work. T3 PHOTO ASIA (2024-) is an art fair launched against the backdrop of Asia's expanding art market, where collectors can acquire works by artists found nowhere else in the world. T3 NEW TALENT (2025-) spans both initiatives to discover and nurture the next generation of photographers, curators and critics, opening pathways to international careers. Through the collaboration of these three pillars, T3 is committed to establishing Tokyo as a cultural hub for photography—a city that stands alongside Paris and New York as Asia's defining voice in the art form.