Photo London has announced its 2026 Talks Programme, bringing together leading artists, collectors, curators, publishers, editors and cultural figures for a series of conversations at the Fair’s new home at Olympia.
Taking place from Wednesday 13 May to Saturday 16 May 2026, the programme reflects the breadth of contemporary photographic culture, with discussions spanning collecting, portraiture, fashion, photojournalism, feminist collage, music photography, the photobook and the changing relationship between images and truth.
The programme opens with two conversations on collecting. Collecting Cultures: Personal, Foundation & Institutional Perspectives brings together Ettore Molinario, Lady Ina Sarikhani Weston and Barbara Staubli, Head of Art at Julius Baer, in a discussion moderated by Tim Marlow, CEO and Director of the Design Museum. Together, they will explore how collections begin, evolve and move between private passion, institutional responsibility and public legacy.
This is followed by Collecting Cultures: Collecting as a Dialogue, with Rafaël Biosse Duplan, Isabelle von Ribbentrop, Dr. Madeleine Haddon and Victoria Law. The panel considers collecting as an active form of cultural exchange, shaped by selection, interpretation, display and long-term relationships between artists, patrons and institutions.
Portraiture is a central thread across the week. Thames & Hudson presents Looking for the Silence, Portraiture and Photography, a conversation between photographer Alys Tomlinson and Sabina Jaskot-Gill, Senior Curator of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, exploring Tomlinson’s approach to faith, ritual, identity and the quiet intensity of the photographic portrait. On Wednesday evening, Steven Meisel London Portraits brings together Bella Freud, Plum Sykes and Lauren Sherman for a conversation on Meisel’s London portraits and his first professional assignment in London for British Vogue in 1993.
The programme continues on Thursday with Alejandro Cegarra and Alfredo Jaar in Conversation, presented by Prix Pictet and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award. Moderated by Charlotte Jansen, the talk brings together two major voices whose work examines power, history, migration and the political charge of the photographic image. Later that day, Thames & Hudson presents Justine Kurland and Fiona Rogers, SCUMB Manifesto and the Feminist Cut, a semi-performative conversation on photography, collage and feminist practice.
Friday’s programme includes Tangas, Thongs and Nude Weddings: Photographing Ibiza, presented by Charlotte Jansen, with Emma Salahi of Agony + Ecstasy in conversation with journalist and editor Louis Wise on Oriol Maspons and Walter Rudolph’s contrasting visions of midcentury Ibiza. Thames & Hudson also presents The Art of the Photobook, bringing together Elizabeth Kahane, Ana Casas Broda and Chris Boot, moderated by Freeny Yianni, to explore how photographic projects move from idea to sequence to object.
Also on Friday, artist Jess T. Dugan joins writer and curator Charlotte Cotton for Love Pictures, a conversation around their new Radius Books publication and more than twenty years of Dugan’s photographic practice. Later that day, Thames & Hudson presents Oasis Through the Lens of Jill Furmanovsky, reflecting on Furmanovsky’s long association with the band, followed by Birdland, the Photography of Leila Jeffreys, in which the artist discusses her human-scale portraits of birds and her approach to nature photography.
Saturday’s programme opens with Birth, Death, and Everything in Between, presented by Charlotte Jansen, with James Clifford Kent in conversation with Tom Seymour on long-term work in Cuba, maternity wards during the pandemic and recent projects in UK hospices. Thames & Hudson presents Harry Gruyaert in Conversation with David Campany, focusing on Gruyaert’s photography of New York and his celebrated use of colour.
The programme concludes with When Seeing Might Not Be Believing, Truth, Trust, and the Future of Visual Journalism, presented by CatchLight and The Ian Parry Photojournalism Grant. Bringing together Ari Abelson, Krishna Sheth and Anastasia Taylor-Lind, moderated by Emma Blau, the discussion examines the future of visual journalism at a moment when artificial intelligence, misinformation and declining public trust are reshaping how images are made, verified and understood.
All talks take place in the Talks Room, Ground Floor, National Hall, Olympia. Talk tickets are £10 and require a valid Photo London Day Ticket or Weekend Pass for the corresponding day.
