Qatar Opens Tasweer Photography Biennale

A photographic festival comes to Qatar

The third edition of Qatar’s Tasweer Photo Festival will open on 20 April. The biannual event will take place across five locations in Doha this spring.

"It is an honour to bring such an outstanding group of artists and documentarians together for the third Tasweer Photo Festival Qatar”, says Khalifa Al Obaidly, Director of Tasweer Photo Festival & Artists in Residence, “Our curators, programming directors and volunteers for this edition have devoted themselves tirelessly to serving the photography community in Qatar and advancing the art of visual storytelling in the WANA region. We look forward to celebrating their achievements.”

The focal exhibition of the 2025 edition of Tasweer is titled To Look at the Sea is to Become What One Is. Hosted at the Fire Station: Artists in Residence, it will align with this year’s festival theme of belonging. Other exhibitions include an exhibition of Moroccan photographer Daoud Aoulad Syad titled Territories of the Instant at Mathaf, and an almost certainly emotional and thoughtful exhibition called Surviving the Inferno: Gaza’s Battle for Existence. Each exhibition will run until 20 June.

This year’s festival has invited photographers to submit their images for Garangao, an open call celebrating the power of photography in capturing memory, belonging and resilience. This open call specifically looked for images telling the story of heritage and cultural identity; the connection between place, and home; and personal collective histories. So it gives us an idea of what might be on display.

In addition to exhibitions, the festival will host workshops, symposia and masterclasses. Tasweer aims to create a global conversation on photography, storytelling, and representation.

Tasweer opens in a busy time for the Qatari art scene as it is about to debut the largest ever survey of Latin American art in LATINOAMERICANO, which will take place at the National Museum of Qatar. The second edition of the Design Doha Biennale will also take place between 16 April and 30 June.

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