Fotografia Europea 2026 – 21st edition
GHOSTS OF THE MOMENT
Concept 2026
They are the shadow of something that has lost its body, yet keep knocking at the night of the mind. They are a memory that refuses to become past, a fear dressed as mystery, a presence made of absence. They dwell in the corridors of silence, live in the cracks of memory, and feed on what was left unsaid. At times they make us tremble; at others they shield us into forgetting.
They have no face, only a thousand masks. You can drive them off with the light of an idea, or listen to them to learn what they hunger for. yet ghosts are not only a menace. They are latent presences, suspended potentials, ideas that never quite departed.
Ghosts of the Moment is an invitation to seek out the unseen and the invisible, pay attention to the whispers of what has been and what could be, revealing the silent stories that inform and guide our present while simultaneously opening up new paths for the imagination.
This edition of Fotografia Europea also explores the quiet endurance of memory – how memories fade yet refuse to vanish entirely. Each photograph holds its own echo, a spectral reminder that even as time slips away, it keeps its essence suspended.. Here, the past is not gone, it breathes softly within the now.
Artistic direction
Arianna Catania is an independent curator, photo editor and journalist. She is also the Director of Gibellina Photoroad/ Open Air & Site-specific Festival.
Arianna Catania
director of the Gibellina Photoroad Festival
Tim Clark, English curator, writer and founder of 1000 Words, an online magazine that is a point of reference for contemporary photographic culture.
Tim Clark
editor & curator 1000 Words
Walter Guadagnini teaches History of Photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and is responsible for the photography section of Il Giornale dell'Arte.
Walter Guadagnini
curator and photography historian
Luce Lebart is a French photography historian, an exhibition curator and a researcher working for the Archive of Modern Conflict Collection and independently. pic by Marie Rouge