In January 2026, Sharjah becomes the photography capital of the region. The Xposure International Photography and Film Festival marks its tenth edition, bringing together documentary photographers, artists, and photojournalists from around the world under one programme. For visitors, it is a rare chance to see in a single week how visual storytelling works today, from front‑line reportage to poetic, almost cinematic series.
Where and when
• Dates: 29 January – 4 February 2026.
• Location: Xposure takes place in the new Aljada district in Sharjah, where an entire “city of images” is effectively built for the festival: pavilions, exhibition halls, lecture stages, and open‑air spaces.
• Format: an international photography and film festival with exhibitions, screenings, talks, portfolio reviews, and a fair of photo equipment and photobooks.
Scale and participants
• For its tenth anniversary, Xposure presents around 420 photographers and visual artists, more than 95 exhibitions and over 3,200 works from classic photo essays to multimedia installations and short films.
• The programme includes renowned names in reportage photography and National Geographic‑level authors, as well as a block of Emirati and regional photographers working with Gulf landscapes, urban fabric, and local communities.
Themes and visual language
• The festival’s thematic lines run from astrophotography and images of the night sky to explorations of climate, urban heat and changing landscapes, where desert, sea, and construction clash visually.
• Another key strand is humanist and documentary photography: stories of migration, war, and everyday life in conflict zones, but also of survival, solidarity, and the everyday beauty photographers find in the most vulnerable contexts.
The festival experience for visitors
• By day, Xposure functions as a dense museum‑like route. Pavilions with stands, a sequence of solo and thematic exhibitions, and spaces designed for slow looking allow visitors to move from one “world” to another in just a few steps.
• In the evening, the programme turns into a forum: public talks, conversations with photographers, book launches and portfolio reviews where visitors can hear first‑hand how projects are built, stories are published, and international photographic careers are shaped.
For the region, the festival cements Sharjah’s status as one of the key centres of documentary and artistic photography, where a growing archive of visual stories about the Middle East and the wider world is being built year after year. For international audiences, Xposure serves as a bridge between global debates and local perspectives, a platform where Emirati and regional photographers share space with established masters and help redraw the familiar map of the visual canon.
To learn more about the Xposure International Photography and Film Festival, please visit its official website.
In addition, we recommend that you explore the Al Hosn Festival 2026 and Sikka Art & Design Festival 2026. You might also be interested in looking through twelve historical photo albums launched by the Akkasah photo archive.
