Photobook Festival 2026

Irma van Bommel
4 days ago
3 min read

The second edition of the Photobook Festival was a great success. On Saturday 23 May, the photobook took centre stage. We celebrated it with a photobook fair, exhibitions dedicated to photobooks, and a festival programme featuring lectures, workshops, and reviews. Music and a coffee corner added to the festival atmosphere.

Despite the high temperature — it reached 27 degrees C that day — we welcomed a solid number of visitors.

Photos: Lieke Winters, unless otherwise specified.

A Unique Concept

The concept of the photobook fair (which we organised for the seventh time) is unique because we rent out tables to established photographers as well as emerging photographers, students, publishers, and sellers of second-hand photobooks. The fair is intentionally non‑commercial. We keep the table fee low so that young photographers can also participate.

Photographers, publishers, collectors, and visitors met in a warm and lively setting. There was plenty of networking, and the fact that sales were good was an added bonus.

Accessible Yet High-Quality Programme

Both the fair and the programme were free to the public. Only the dummy reviews required a modest fee. We aim to be accessible while still offering quality through our choice of speakers.

The Bookphotographer shared tips on how to position a book effectively by capturing its character through images — because a book is so much more than just its cover.

Femke Rotteveel from FOTODOK interviewed young photographers Michelle Piergoelam and Nick van der Klooster about their new photobooks.

As in previous years, the dummy reviews were conducted by Lisanne van Happen (Eriskay Connection) and Paul van Mameren (Lecturis). All nine available review slots were fully booked. Last year, ten minutes per review proved too short, so this year we opted for twenty‑minute sessions.

Michelle Piergoelam interviewed by Femke Rotteveel

Rick van der Klooster interviewed by Femke Rotteveel

Meij Gommers gave an artist talk about her leporello. Laura van den Nieuwenhuis discussed her favourite books from the Pennings Foundation library. Staff members guided visitors through the library. There were also demonstrations and workshops on zines, leporellos, and cyanotype.

Presentations as Part of the Photobook Festival

Especially for the Photobook Festival, we presented the leporello by Meij Gommers — an artist’s book that has not been published in an edition.We prolonged the exhibition Love Letters from the War by Hanno Ketterer so it would remain on view during the festival. The project consists of a book and a film. Prior to the festival, on Saturday 9 May, we organised an Artist Talk in which Hanno Ketterer was interviewed by photographer and lecturer Nicole Segers. Art historian Claire Hoogakker placed the project in an art‑historical context.

Meij Gommers (photos Lieke Winters and Meij Gommers)

Hanno Ketterer (photos Lieke Winters and Hanno Ketterer)

The Photobook Festival took place within the exhibition GENDER, which we organise annually around this time as part of Pride Week Eindhoven. Alongside the presentation Celestial Bodies, we showed a selection from the project On Hold by Prins de Vos. He was present at the fair with the books he has published.

A Few Reactions

After the festival, we received several responses by email:

A participant of the fair: “I thought the new concept of the fair worked very well. There was a steady flow of visitors throughout the day. As a seller, it’s of course difficult to follow the programme, but personally I’m very satisfied: I’ve never sold this much before. It took a while to get going, but sales continued all day. I also had many lovely conversations and new encounters. I’d be happy to return next time.”

Another participant: “It was a pleasure being with you last Saturday.”

One of the students whose book we purchased for our photobook library: “Thank you again for making this happen and for your support, it was lovely meeting you! Hope we cross paths again at the next edition!”

A visitor: “Thank you so much for the wonderful Photobook Festival yesterday. It was a very enjoyable and inspiring day.”