Pop-Up Festival: What Have We Done?
World Press Photo presents a pop-up festival to accompany their 70-year anniversary exhibition in Groningen
Running alongside the exhibition, our pop-up festival brings this exploration to life with a public program designed to elevate visual literacy, engage with the exhibition’s themes, and spark dialogue and reflection.
Bringing together local photographers, critical thinkers, and audiences, the festival will invite you to learn how photographic images communicate and influence understanding, explore how they speak to assumptions, bias, and narrative frameworks, and engage in conversations about how visual storytelling shapes society.
Want to join the activities? No registration is needed, just a valid exhibition ticket (€9.50). You can purchase one at the door at Niemeyer on September 20.
Program
Stage talks
12:30-13:30h
World Press Photo: Past, Present, Future
Saskia Asser and Joumana El Zein Khoury
What can images teach us about where we’ve been—and where we’re going? Curator and photo historian Saskia Asser joins World Press Photo’s Executive Director Joumana El Zein Khoury to reflect on the organization’s rich legacy, its role in shaping global visual storytelling, and the future of photojournalism.
13:30-14:15h
Authentic collaboration
Ruth Ossai
Nigerian-British photographer Ruth Ossai brings a fresh perspective to portraiture, blending fashion, performance, and community storytelling. In this presentation, she shares how her vibrant imagery challenges stereotypes and reimagines how African identities are seen and celebrated.
14:15-15:00h
Noorderlicht presents: Rauw Vermogen
Jedidja Smalbil
Inland shipping is the lifeblood of Groningen—an often unseen world of skippers whose work and pride connect the region to the wider world. Photographer Jedidja Smalbil, herself from a family of skippers, brings these stories to light in intimate portraits that honor both tradition and resilience on the water.
14:15-15:00h
Shifting Narratives
Andrew Esiebo
From documenting everyday life in Lagos to exploring themes of identity, migration, and urbanization, Andrew Esiebo has built a practice that bridges local stories and global conversations. In this presentation, he reflects on how his work has evolved alongside shifts in the photographic industry, and how new ways of seeing shape the stories he tells.
15:45-16:30h
Challenging Erasure
Ashfika Rahman
Bangladeshi artist Ashfika Rahman uses photography to confront issues of justice, human rights, and collective memory. Working closely with marginalized communities, she creates powerful visual narratives that challenge silence and erasure. In this presentation, Ashfika speaks about her practice, the stories behind her projects, and how art can become a form of resistance.
Workshops
12:30-13:30 and 15:00-16:00
Interactive session: Diving into archives
Beatrice Harbour and Mercedes Almagro Ocana
Since 1955, World Press Photo has been building an archive of photos, publications, posters, educational materials, and much more. Join us for an interactive workshop exploring how archives are selected, described, curated, and contextualised. We will look back over 70 years of the World Press Photo Contest through the stories that the archive tells us, and read between the lines to consider the voices that are missing.
13:30-14:30 and 16:00-17:00
Visual Thinking Workshop: See What I See?
Anita Huynh, Mercedes Almagro Ocana, Naomi Purswani, Saba Askary
In today’s hyper-fast media landscape, we scroll past thousands of images a day, often on autopilot. But what happens when we slow down and truly see? In this Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) workshop, where we’ll pause to carefully observe and make meaning together from photographs in the What Have We Done? exhibition. Through collective looking and dialogue, participants will discover new ways of seeing, not only the details within an image, but also the perspectives of others who bring different experiences and understandings of the world.
You’ll leave with a deeper appreciation of what it means to look – thoughtfully, critically, and collectively.