The Photoville Festival

PHOTOVILLE FESTIVAL BRINGS OVER 80 FREE EXHIBITIONS OF LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY TO BROOKLYN BRIDGE PARK AND EVERY BOROUGH OF NEW YORK

Founded in 2011, Photoville has throughout its history sought to populate New York’s public space with perspectives as diverse and international as the city itself. In pursuit of this mission, they launched the Photoville Festival, committed to nurturing a new lens of representation, an overarching vision that extends to a diversity of themes and stories. Celebrating and emulating New York’s spirit and identity at the nexus of the hyper-local and vastly global, the festival’s exhibitions offer windows into lives and stories unfolding down the block and oceans away.

Photoville (co-founded by Laura Roumanos, Sam Barzilay, and Dave Shelley) brings local and international visions of our world to Brooklyn Bridge Park and every New York City borough each year in June. In over 80 free-of-charge exhibitions, the festival reflects our tumultuous moment, while offering hope in its collection of images from across the spectrum of human experience that transcend our era of reinforced silos and borders.

Proudly supported by its partners, Photoville’s widespread exhibitions reach residents and visitors throughout the many corners of America’s most populous city, while maintaining Brooklyn Bridge Park as a central festival hub. The festival features Photoville’s signature shipping container exhibitions, clustering open-air viewing opportunities in what’s become known as the Photo Village in Brooklyn Bridge Park. With Brooklyn Bridge Park, Barretto Point Park, Bella Abzug Park, the Seaport, Alice Austen House, Travers Park, and many other locations brimming with images and ideas, Photoville is likewise a celebration of the city’s many spirited public spaces, and the worlds that intersect within them.

In 2025, striking photography unflinchingly offered insight into experiences of a world in upheaval, commingled with works that zoom into everyday joys, marvels, and the perseverance of human connection. Siddhartha Mitter, in The New York Times, has written that Photoville “is a reminder of photography’s power not just to document crises, but to help imagine better lives.” Harnessing the urgency and intimacy photography offers, the festival introduces us to works by photographers working in myriad forms (from eye-opening photojournalism to inventive visual storytelling) at various points of their careers (from the vital explorations of student photographers to works from acclaimed artists at the height of their powers).

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A look back at our 2025 Festival

The 14th annual Photoville Festival featured the iconic Photo Village in Brooklyn Bridge Park with our classic shipping containers, in addition to open air exhibits across all 5 boroughs. It also featured in-person and virtual workshops and special events, including artist talks, professional development workshops, tours and more. We displayed 87 exhibitions dispersed throughout New York City. 

Over 1,000,000 visitors engaged with our free and public exhibitions in the five boroughs, showcasing the incredible work of over 200 artists, collaborating with partners including The New York Times, National Geographic, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Alice Austen House, Doctors Without Borders, Magnum Foundation, Pulitzer Center and more.

Working with parks and city officials to safely install exhibition banners and custom structures throughout parks and public spaces in New York City, exhibitions remained on view for several months so that communities could enjoy them while using these open spaces as a place to recharge, exercise, and relax.

Daytime programming at the 2025 Festival included 100+ workshops and special events presented with and by artists and industry professionals, with partners such as Diversify Photo, Leica Camera, Diversify Photo, PhotoWings, The Pulitzer Center and more. Professional development workshops had over 600 attendees.

Over 700 students and educators across New York City attended our 2025 Festival education program which was proudly supported by our partner PhotoWings and the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment. Throughout the week, participants were able to meet exhibiting photographers to hear them speak about their work, while also attending panel discussions of student photographers beginning their journey in visual storytelling.