Images that shape culture
At the 10th Xposure International Photography Festival, which concluded in Sharjah on February 4, powerful images, bold storytelling, and global creative voices came together to inspire, challenge, and move audiences. Here is our selection from the festival.
CIRIL JAZBEC
Jazbec is a Slovenian photographer focused on communities confronting the climate crisis. He has worked extensively in the Arctic, most recently on SILA, a collaboration with Inuit youth in Greenland. Here, they cross the Icefjord, carrying fishing sticks to test the ice as they walk. Once frozen for months, rising temperatures have made ice conditions unpredictable.
DAN KITWOOD
On the banks of the Niger River, in the Haut Niger National Park in Guinea, the Chimpanzee Conservation Centre is a sanctuary and rehabilitation facility for orphaned chimpanzees. Most of the animals were orphaned after being taken from the wild as infants. Here, carer Douda Keita holds Noel during a daily bushwalk.
PHILIPPE CHANCEL
North Korea is little understood. Paris- based photographer Chancel travelled there seven times over nine years for his Datazone project. His images examine the country’s visual landscape, where public signage, monuments, andcarefully staged scenes shape the built environment and everyday life.
MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER BROWN
Michael Christopher Brown is known for pioneering mobile photography in conflict zones. Bullets and Stones was an exhibition of selects from a book of the same name. The images bear witness to loss, endurance, and the will to survive and dream amid the tumult in Palestine. The works humanise lives too often reduced to headlines.
FELIX MARQUEZ
A Mexican visual journalist, Marquez was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2024. His exhibition, With No Ithaca Awaiting, focuses on migrants as they navigate sociopolitical barriers in search of better living conditions. It seeks to tell the human stories behind the statistics. Here, US border officers attempt to stop migrants crossing the Rio Grande River from Mexico to Texas.
JEAN PIERRE RIEU
Rieu captures the haunting beauty of abandoned places. In a giant shed in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, the Energia M rocket appears ready for a mission. But deserted since the early 90s, it is frozen in time. A solitary figure in the image reveals the immensity of the place, like a forgotten cathedral dedicated to space dreams.
Troubled waters
The Xposure Conservation Summit unites photographers, conservationists, scientists, and storytellers to address critical environmental challenges. This year, a distinguished panel of ocean explorers and underwater photographers discussed the urgent need for, and the challenges of, marine conservation.
BRIAN SKERRY
The Sentient Sea featured extraordinary images from Skerry’s 40-year career exploring the world’s oceans. His images capture the beauty of underwater life, reminding us too of its fragility and what we stand to lose. Here, a southern right whale encounters a diver near theAuckland Islands, New Zealand.
JENNIFER ADLER
Underwater forests line almost a third of the world’s coastlines. These kelp forests are coral reefs cold-water cousins. Scientists estimate that 40-50% of kelp forests have disappeared, largely due to climate change and trophic cascades. Here, a young harbour seal swims through a kelp forest near the California coast.
ALP CAN
Underwater photographer Dr. Alp Can explores marine ecosystems under threat. His work highlights the danger faced by the world’s coral reefs. In little more than a century, humanity has disrupted what nature took millions of years to create. Here, pygmy gobies hide inside human detritus—a discarded soda bottle.
