What does it mean to be human? How do we define humanity and all it encompasses? What personal responsibilities do we have to humanity? It’s a vast, amorphous concept that can look very different depending on where you’re standing. At times, this notion of humanity can feel abstract – an idea to be examined rather than an all-consuming condition we exist within. For others, their notion of humanity and how it pertains to themselves and others is intuitive – a received, unexamined truth.

One of the world’s most thrilling photography festivals, located in Kyoto, brings together image-makers whose work addresses this complex subject in myriad ways. KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival was founded in 2012 by photographer Lucille Reyboz and lighting director Yusuke Nakanishi, who, despite having no institutional experience, felt a vocation to establish an event with the capacity to celebrate photography, provoke thought and foster community in the historic city. “Photography is such an amazing medium because it transcends the barriers of language to convey a very strong and direct message,” writes Reyboz in the 2025 programme. “Through photography, we wanted to give the possibility to share various stories and address social and cultural issues. We wanted to build a platform that could inspire people to make the world a better place.”

Now in its 13th edition, this year’s KYOTOGRAPHIE stages work by renowned international and Japanese photographers exploring, in their unique ways, the theme of humanity. This year’s programme includes Martin Parr, Mao Ishikawa, Adam Rouhana, Tamaki Yoshida, Lee Shulman, and many more photographers, each wrangling with the human experience.

“Humanity encompasses the diverse experiences and qualities that define us as individuals and as a collective,” Reyboz and Nakanishi write in their introduction to this year’s festival. “Reflecting on our capacity for love, empathy, and resilience, the 2025 KYOTOGRAPHIE theme is illuminated through two distinct cultural perspectives: the Japanese and the Western, exploring the diversity of human experience.”

They elaborate on these differing attitudes: “Western traditions often highlight individuality, autonomy, and the centrality of humans in the world, celebrating personal freedom and universal moral principles. In contrast, the Japanese concept of humanity is deeply relational, emphasising harmony and interdependence, and viewing humanity as inseparable from the natural world.”

The founders emphasise that “the lived experience is central to the works within this year’s programme. Artworks created from deep emotional responses to life reflect and comment on the fabric in which each of us exist”. Equally, the festival and the exhibitions themselves are conceived of in such a way as to integrate into the fabric of the city, staged in gallery and museum spaces as well as more unusual and unexpected locations across the city.

Artworks are displayed in non-traditional sites such as the Demachi Masugata Shopping Arcade, Ryosokuin Zen Temple, the Kyoto Shimbun Building (a former printing plant), Kyoto Station, and the historical Hachiku-an building (the former Kawasaki Residence). “Temples, machiyas (traditional townhouses), and historic sites became part of the storytelling, allowing art and environment to merge in ways that felt both organic and unexpected,” explain Reyboz and Nakanishi.

As part of the festival’s associated program, KYOTOGRAPHIE also features an exhibition of work by eminent image-maker Daisuke Yokota, created in collaboration with Another Man. Alongside new photography created for the show, this body of work is born from Yokota’s response to the original Comme des Garçons Eau de Parfum, recently featured in the magazine’s Winter/Spring 2025 issue, then further expanded into a 32-page zine included inside a limited-edition boxed version of the issue. Taking inspiration from the Japanese avant-garde photography movement striving to create a visual language with which to articulate the postwar world, Yokota is part of an artistic lineage whose predecessors include the likes of Provoke founders and contributors Takuma Nakahira, Yutaka Takanashi, Koji Taki and Daidō Moriyama. Seemingly illuminated by an otherworldly glow, his silvery abstracted images are mesmerising and futuristic while recalling the atmosphere and ideology of these earlier luminaries.

Below, we meet five incredible artists and find out more about the work they are exhibiting at this year’s KYOTOGRAPHIE.

MAO ISHIKAWA

Born in Okinawa under US military rule, celebrated photographer Mao Ishikawa has devoted her practice to compassionately documenting the island’s inhabitants. Her portraits are distinctive for their warmth and humanity. Below, co-curator Yusuke Nakanishi reflects on Ishikawa’s exhibition AKABANA – Red Flower, a seminal photo series from the early 1970s.

“AKABANA – Red Flower can be considered one of the earliest photographic series in Mao Ishikawa’s career, taken in the 1970s. ‘Akabana’ refers to the native hibiscus flower of Okinawa. Born in postwar Okinawa, Ishikawa has always loved her homeland – a region shaped and shaken by the tides of history. Ishikawa chose to work in a bar frequented only by African American soldiers stationed on US military bases, driven by a desire to better understand the America she had once resented. There, she encountered resilient Okinawan women working alongside her, and she likened their strength and spirit to that vibrant flower.

Her entire photographic practice that overflows with humanity

“Born in postwar Okinawa, Ishikawa has always loved her homeland. For over half a century, she has observed – through a deeply affectionate lens – the ongoing exploitation of Okinawa by both Japan and the United States. Her work consistently captures the lives of those who resist and endure, portraying them with love and unwavering empathy. Ishikawa photographs with a deep desire to share the difficult reality that Okinawa continues to face with as many people as possible. In her series AKABANA – Red Flower, she portrays the powerful and beautiful lives of Black men and Okinawan women – communities who were, and still are, subject to discrimination. Living within the community herself, Ishikawa photographed them not as an outsider, but from within, breaking away from the conventional photographer-subject dichotomy. Through this approach, she succeeds in depicting Okinawan women not as tragic figures, but as true heroines.

“She takes the time to truly engage with her subjects, building deep relationships before ever taking a photograph. For her, the act of photography is not the final goal, but rather a means to something greater – a heartfelt wish for the happiness of those she photographs and the improvement of their circumstances. In this sense, it’s not only her photographs, but her entire photographic practice that overflows with humanity.” – Yusuke Nakanishi

ADAM ROUHANA

Adam Rouhana is a Palestinian-American artist and photographer based between Jerusalem and London. Often inspired by early memories and scenes of domestic life in Palestine, Rouhana’s ongoing body of work, Before Freedom, acts as a “counter-narrative” to the images of the ongoing genocide in the photographer’s ancestral home. Speaking to Dazed last year, he explained: “To show my photos of Palestine now, is to say: we are here, in Palestine – and we’re not going anywhere.” Moving beyond portrayals of Gaza in the mainstream media, his exhibition The Logic of Freedom at KYOTOGRAPHIE challenges “the foundations of our known reality, exploring how narratives are shaped by discursive power.”

“The photography that I make is very much inspired by a lineage of photographers who documented life unfolding around them. Which is to say that my work is not in any way posed or staged, but rather it’s an interpretation of what I see taking place around me – it’s a channelling of reality that I’m experiencing in a certain place at a certain time. So whether that be small gestures that occur or violent Israeli incursions that are taking place in occupied Palestine, that’s what the pictures become.

What is the nature of reality, and how do photographic image-based representations shape what we know about the world?

“The Logic of Truth poses a question about what Palestine is in the world’s mind. Is Palestine a pile of rubble? Is it the ‘Holy Land’? Or is it the homeland of the Palestinians? In doing so, it questions the nature of reality and what we hold to be true, challenges the efficacy and purpose of photo reportage, and examines the power of image-based representations.

“The exhibition builds on several narrative threads, pulled from my ongoing body of work Before Freedom. When I first started making this work in 2022, I went to Palestine without knowing exactly what I was going to make. But I had several guiding questions to direct my thinking, to try to answer through the process of photography. One of which was, what does it mean to be a Palestinian, having grown up in America without a safe homeland to return to? But second of all, I asked, how can I reconcile the experiences that I’ve had in Palestine with my family and my friends, with what I have seen on the news and heard about Palestine back in the US? They were very different experiences. And so, The Logic of Truth speaks to these questions. It speaks to the question of what is the nature of reality, and how do photographic image-based representations shape what we know about the world?” – Adam Rouhana

KEIJIRO KAI

For photographer Keijiro Kai, ritualistic festivals are a kind of conduit for us to commune with something ancestral or primal; they allow people to converge and express something about our humanity that perhaps lays dormant during the normal course of our waking lives. From a 700-year-old Christian festival in Derbyshire believed to be the origin of football to the dangerous The Nozawa Onsen Fire Festival and the rowdy Lelo festival held during Easter in Georgia, his exhibition Down to the Bone at KYOTOGRAPHIE explores humanity in its primal state. 

“‘Chaos, violence, ritual’ are not the themes [of my work]. It’s true that I photograph rituals such as festivals, but they are just the motifs. What I’m really trying to capture is the idea that perhaps within these rituals lie hidden aspects of our primal humanity – perhaps hidden glimpses of what it means to live. For instance, I wonder if photography had existed 500 years ago, would we not see scenes identical to the ones I capture today? I’m drawn to the unchanging human energy toward life, or prayer. Ultimately, I’m confronting the question of what it means to be human.

The camera is a machine. And machines are ruthlessly indifferent. They don’t care about your emotions or intentions. Thanks to that indifference, they can show you a world you would never have noticed otherwise. That is the magic of photography for me

“[The thing I value about photography is] a sense of distance. I am both a participant in the chaotic crowds of festivals and, because I have the purpose of photographing, I think I retain a certain composure compared to those around me. And when I run out of film, I have to step out of the crowd to change it. That process allows me to view the crowd from a distance, from a more detached perspective. In other words, being able to go back and forth between the core of the festival and an outsider’s point of view – this sense of distance, I believe, works to the advantage of these works.

“What eventually shaped Down to the Bone was not my plan, but the photos that unexpectedly turned out and guided me. Photography sometimes captures a world beyond your intentions. Because the camera is a machine. And machines are ruthlessly indifferent. They don’t care about your emotions or intentions. Thanks to that indifference, they can show you a world you would never have noticed otherwise. That is the magic of photography for me.” – Keijiro Kai

HSING-YU LIU

Returning to his childhood home in 2009, Taiwanese photographer Hsing-yu Liu became intrigued with his parent’s 1984 wedding portraits and the marriage suit his father had worn. Dressing his mother in the original suit and his father in a wedding dress, he began re-staging the original wedding photographs as a means of exploring gender equality, cultural traditions, the relationship between the individual and society, and the memorialisation of our personal and family histories.

“This exhibition is the result of 15 years of introspection and reflection. Through photographs of my parents wearing each other’s clothes, it explores themes of family, gender, and identity. The exhibition weaves together personal family memories and broader social transformations, inviting viewers to reconsider the relationship between family and self.

The exchange of suits and wedding dresses is a form of roleplay, but at times, it reflects reality even more closely. Within marriage, gender roles and identities are fluid and ever-changing

“In Taiwan, wedding photography has become a ritualised part of the marriage process – an essential step. Gazing at the ‘happiest moment’, represented by the wedding portrait, may serve to ease the pain couples face in real life. This could be the ‘magical’ and ‘idealistic’ function of wedding photos. However, the incidents my family encountered in real life are precisely what prompted me to create these photographs. The exchange of suits and wedding dresses is a form of roleplay, but at times, it reflects reality even more closely. Within marriage, gender roles and identities are fluid and ever-changing.

“Photography transforms these ‘non-normative’ wedding portraits – where the couple has swapped outfits – into visual evidence. It turns irreversible family events into subjects that can be described and discussed. For the working class, this is perhaps one of the few ways to leave a trace of their own history.”

TAMAKI YOSHIDA

As an artist, Tamaki Yoshida is perpetually drawn to “the theme of how people interact with nature and living things”. She tells Dazed: “It’s a question that is always in the back of my mind, and one that I revisit again and again through my work.” Her exhibition, Echoes from the Soil, is the fruit of her residency in Ruinart, the historic champagne house in Reims, France. Immersing herself in Champagne’s landscape of vineyards and ancient layers of limestone strata, the artist began to consider soil as a conduit or repository for memory, and to reflect deeply on the relationship between humans and nature, and the present and past, as well as how we can preserve the inheritance of these things for the future.

“Soil has the power to hold the memories of life. All that once lived seeps into it, remaining there unseen. Good things, pain, hopes, conflicts – everything settles down and eventually turns into soil that will nurture future life. The soil from Champagne in France, which I used in my work, has, over a long period of time, absorbed the relationships between nature and people, as well as the climate and culture, and accumulated a ‘power’ unique to that place. Eating something born from that soil is not just a taste experience, but it means taking in the history and memories of the land into yourself. And we ourselves will one day become the soil, and be absorbed by the next generation. Soil quietly but with overwhelming power supports the cycle of life. Every time I touch it, I cannot help but feel something like the great will of nature.

“All living things eventually die, return to the earth, and then move on to the next ‘life’. The first room [in my exhibition] is a dark and quiet space symbolising the end of things. It features photographs of things that will eventually become soil, such as still-living slugs, mushrooms, flowers, fallen trees, and already-dead birds. These prints were buried in the soil of Champagne, where the photographs were taken, and then exhumed in preparation for the exhibition.

Soil, as the place to which all life returns, teaches us the sense of continuation. What we do now is the future. It makes us realise that, even if we cannot see it, our existence and the feelings we have at that time will not disappear 

“The second room is a completely different space, bright and open. I call this the ‘Room of Regeneration’. Here you can see the powerful life forms living in the present, supported by the soil and earth inherited from the past. The prints are made from paper, one of the oldest media used by humans. In this case, I used Japanese washi paper made by mixing various types of trash collected in the fields of Champagne with photographic prints of deer and birds. They are also symbols of what we have inherited from the past, and our hope is that we can pass these on to the future – even ‘negative’ things like plastic – and connect them to a better world.

“I believe that facing the soil and the earth is a dialogue with something invisible. Silent memories and the accumulation of time lie silently there, and by listening carefully to them, we can come to understand the weight of ‘being here and now’. And, above all, the soil, as the place to which all life returns, teaches us the sense of continuation. What we do now is the future. It makes us realise that, even if we cannot see it, our existence and the feelings we have at that time will not disappear.

“When I go into nature, I sometimes suddenly get the feeling that ‘something is here’. It’s not a feeling of fear or anxiety, but rather a feeling of being enveloped and quietly welcomed. The presence of beings that have lived in the past and the overlapping layers of time of the land are deeply embedded in the soil in particular, and I sense something like a ‘lingering presence’ there rather than a ghost. So when I enter a forest or any piece of land, I always say, ‘Excuse me for bothering you.’ I am convinced that the trees, flowers, and the land itself always welcome these words. When I come into contact with the earth and nature, I try not to forget to show respect for the invisible and to have small conversations with them.”

Kyotographie is running in Kyoto until 11 May 2025. Visit the website here for a full programme of exhibitions and follow their Instagram here for news on next year’s festival.