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PhotoKTM Celebrates Its 10th Year
November 14th – December 14th, 2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
14 November 2025
UPDATED: PhotoKTM6 Opening Night
Editor’s Note: This press release was originally published on November 10, 2025, and has been updated to include new details about the Opening Night program, including the PhotoKTM Award of Excellence announcement and performance information.
OPENING NIGHT UPDATE
PhotoKTM is honored and pleased to present the 2025 Award of Excellence to usha titikshu.
An independent jury comprising Kunda Dixit, Uma Bista, and Bikas Karki has selected usha titikshu as the recipient in recognition of her longstanding and exceptional contribution to photography and photojournalism. Originally from Salyan, Nepal, she began taking pictures at a very early age, and her photography practice has always been deeply intertwined with important civic discourses and movements in Nepal.
Throughout her career, usha titikshu has elevated photography beyond craft, establishing it as a powerful political medium that amplifies marginalized voices. As one jury member observed, “She is a voice of the downtrodden”—consistently using her lens to document and advocate for those often overlooked by mainstream narratives.
The opening also features a special performance directed by Anuja Ghosalkar, collectively written by and featuring Nepal-based artists who participated in her recent workshop, Everyday Leaders for Imagined Futures.
10th November 2025
PhotoKTM, Nepal’s pioneering international photography festival, is pleased to announce its 6th edition — marking a decade of fearless, uncensored visual storytelling and continuing its role as a vital platform for hundreds of photographers and visual artists to explore the political lives of images and their role in shaping our histories and futures.
The festival will take place from November 14th to December 14th, 2025 across Kathmandu Valley, featuring 18 exhibitions, slideshow projections, workshops, artist talks, panel discussions, portfolio reviews, and film screenings. Nepal Art Council, Kathmandu will serve as the anchor venue for the festival throughout the month, while the festival will also travel to Mangahiti & Chyasal in Patan; Tribhuvan University in Kirtipur; Nandi Keshar Bagaincha in Naxal; and Nigu Pukhu in Madhyapur Thimi.
This year’s edition will present a dynamic program shaped around the curatorial theme of Global South solidarities.
PhotoKTM is interested in revisiting the political and cultural legacies of the Third World project, learning about histories of resistance and solidarity work from across the majority world, and how they have shaped contemporary processes to reclaim sovereignty in regions battered by centuries of colonialism, exploitation, and violence. “We hope this year’s coming together will deepen cultural understanding among artists and cultural communities across the Third World, strengthen reciprocal transnational solidarities through the sharing of our histories, stories, struggles and hopes, and open up pathways for more south-south collaborations and exchange across geographies.” said NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati, the co-founder and festival director.
Drawing inspiration from the historic 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia, which marks its 70th anniversary this year, the festival asks how we can carry forward the legacy of the Third World Project today.
“PhotoKTM6 turns to the spirit of Global South Solidarity and Third World internationalism. From anti-colonial struggles to the Bandung Conference, to the non-alignment movement and revolutionary cultural exchanges, these histories continue to shape how countries like Nepal imagine their place in the world. Today as global powers test our moral fiber and our sovereign will, we hope to direct our creative energies toward renewing the spirit of solidarity, imagination, and collective future.” said Diwas Raja Kc who is part of the festival’s curatorial team.
The festival comes at a pivotal moment when Nepal is navigating significant political transitions: the GenZ protests that led to the appointment of the first woman prime minister, and elections scheduled for March. It offers a space for civil society and young people to learn, exchange ideas, and connect with others across Global South contexts.
This year PhotoKTM is working closely with yasmine eid-sabbagh, as the invited interlocutor, to shape the intentions and programs of this edition of the festival.
“I think it is particularly relevant that these spaces are created and maintained because it is only if people meet and continue to do this important work, in which they think collectively, they work collectively, and they hold up certain values, that they will be capable of contributing to what I would call a ‘free world’.” said yasmine eid-sabbagh.
This year, the festival spotlights the work and curatorial voices of artists from the Global South, featuring over 40 artists from Santiago to Lubumbashi and Quito to Dakar, alongside Nepali photographers and filmmakers. PhotoKTM is proud to present eight Nepali artists from the 2025 cohort of the photo.circle fellowship program, whose works explore the questions, challenges, and contradictions surrounding the notions of ‘development’ and ‘progress’ in contemporary Nepal.
Education has always been a core tenet of the festival since its formation in 2015. Through an ongoing partnership with Srijanalaya, the PhotoKTM Arts & Education program works closely with schools, colleges and informal learning groups, to facilitate immersive learning experiences—guided tours, workshops, discussions and seminars—for young people and educators alike.
All the exhibitions, projections, talks and activities during the festival are free and open to the public.
The 6th edition of PhotoKTM includes:
EXHIBITIONS (selected)
Possible and Imaginary Lives by yasmine eid-sabbagh / Rozenn Quéré
An exhibition, based on family photographs and taped interviews, tells the story of four strong and feisty women, exiled to the four corners of the globe, four Palestinian-Lebanese sisters who traversed the 20th century.
Humo, Semilla, Raíz byIsadora Romero (Ecuador)
This exhibition offers an alternate way of looking at environmental issues ‒ through the prism of possibility, instead of catastrophic consequence. Romero’s visual research engages with how the loss of ancestral memory and Indigenous knowledge ‒ resulting from colonization, forced displacement, and racism ‒ is causing seeds to disappear at an alarming rate.
Between Us, a Thread by Ahmed Alaqra (Ramallah)
This project began as an email. A quiet gesture between photographers, image-makers, and those who hold memory like a fragile light. Palestinian, Arab, scattered — yet orbiting the same wound. In times when the land burns and language breaks, the thread insists on another form of communication: tender, slow, and unmonetized.
Martyrs, Saints & Sellouts by Siona O’Connel (South Africa)
Comprised of photographs by Benny Gool, Zubeida Vallie and Adil Bradlow, documenting apartheid South Africa, this exhibition presents a vivid narrative of violence, loss and injuries that continue to reverberate under the rhetoric of the post‑apartheid landscape.
Life and Struggle of Garment Workers by Taslima Akhter (Bangladesh)
This project focuses on the millions of workers who leave their villages and move into crowded worker barracks in the cities of Bangladesh, in search of a better life.
PROGRAMMING (selected)
Southasia Incubator — a flagship program designed for lens-based practitioners from across Southasia to share work, engage in critical dialogue, and explore collaborations. It connects practitioners with curators, editors, publishers, researchers, festival organizers, and other professionals who can help open doors and expand possibilities.
The KTM Assembly – in an inaugural initiative, the festival will host a gathering from Nov 24–29 2025, inviting cultural organizers, collectives and organizations working in the arts and culture in artist-led, community-oriented, non-extractivist, intersectional, global south contexts to come together, share each other’s work and experiences, learn and explore. The KTM Assembly will be hosted and facilitated by yasmine eid-sabbagh, Prathama Raghavan and NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati.
Third Camera – a film series curated by Diwas Raja KC that brings together voices that speak from, and to, the Global South — a constellation of cinematic gestures bound by shared histories of struggle, exile, imagination, and renewal. Spanning continents and generations, these works trace how filmmakers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America have turned the camera into an instrument of liberation and a vessel of poetic resistance. Each film rekindles the spirit of Third World solidarity — that anticipatory politics which once dared to envision freedom not as possession, but as a collective horizon.
FUNDING & PARTNERSHIPS
As an independent, Nepali‑led initiative, securing funding for PhotoKTM has always been challenging — but this year has been the hardest yet.
“From the very start of planning this edition we’ve faced a full-blown funding crisis. Some funders discontinued support or withdrew because of “political instability.” One even tried to censor us, insisting we stay “apolitical” or else they would pull funding.” said the festival director NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati.
“We see this as a deliberate attempt to depoliticize artists and disconnect civic and cultural institutions from their social and political contexts. Around the world, we’ve seen time and again how funding is used as an instrument of political subordination and means to preserve the status quo. Conditional funding erodes into our communities and can demobilize us. This situation was a sharp reminder of something we’ve known for a while: we need to move away from our reliance on Western, conditional funding.”
In response, the festival launched the “Help Keep PhotoKTM Free & Uncensored” fundraiser in early October — as a deliberate move toward a new model, one where the festival is supported directly by the people who believe in it and share its values. In an act of solidarity, 18 Nepali photographers contributed an image each to support this fundraiser.
The fundraiser’s success so far sends a powerful message: people‑led, people‑funded initiatives are possible, and Nepali initiatives thrive when Nepali’s stand behind them.
“In addition, we are deeply grateful for the long‑standing support of Shikshya Foundation Nepal and the Embassy of Switzerland in Nepal whose generosity continues to make the festival possible, and FreeMuse and Cultural Workers Solidarity Front, two independent non-profit organizations who provide the financial infrastructure to support PhotoKTM.” says Kakshapati.
About the organizers
Established in 2007, photo.circle is a Kathmandu based transdisciplinary artist-led organization that creates resources for visual storytellers, researchers, educators, activists and other cultural producers to engage with social change. photo.circle runs Nepal Picture Library – a digital archive that builds a multicultural and pluralist representation of Nepali history; and PhotoKTM, a biennial photo festival that takes place in the public domain and is free for all to attend.
For the full festival program: photoktm.com/photoktm6-schedule/
For information on the ‘PhotoKTM free and uncensored’ fundraiser: photoktm.betterworld.org/campaigns/fundraise-photoktm and photoktm.com/support-us/
For other regular updates on the festival, please follow:
instagram.com/photoktm
facebook.com/photoktm
x.com/photoktm
For further press inquiries, please contact: press@photoktm.com |
Nishi Rungta – +9779818108213
PhotoKTM In the Press
How art can connect, repair, and represent – Kalam Weekly
The politics behind photographs – Nepali Times
फोटो काठमाडौँको छैटौँ संस्करण आजदेखि शुरू – उकालो
फोटो काठमाडौँको एक महिने प्रदर्शनी आजदेखि सुरु – हिमाल प्रेस