Josh Edgoose, Artist in Residence 2026, posiert für die ORF-Zeit im Bild in seiner Ausstellung „Swinging London“. © Johannes Zinner
304,557 visitors
1,570 photographs, 38 exhibitions
72 artist talks, workshops and portfolio reviews
59 art education tours
7.6 million euros in economic value creation
812 reports on TV, radio, in print media and on social media
SO BRITISH!
At midnight on Monday 12 October 2026, the ninth edition of the La Gacilly-Baden Photo Festival drew to a close. The visual narratives created by the world’s finest photographers once again attracted a great deal of attention to the festival: 304,557 visitors enjoyed photographic art and garden art in the World Heritage town of Baden near Vienna. This makes the festival not only the largest Franco-Austrian cultural event, but also – in cooperation with its exhibition partners La Gacilly in Brittany, Garten Tulln and the Month of Photography in Bratislava – by far the largest photography exhibition in Europe.
“The La Gacilly-Baden Photo Festival has long since become a cultural and tourist flagship for Lower Austria and an international crowd-puller. More than 300,000 visitors are a striking testament to the appeal of photography. ‘Heartfelt congratulations on this tremendous success and on the international accolade as “Photo Festival of the Year”,’ says Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner with delight.
Since its inception, the La Gacilly-Baden Photo Festival has taken on the challenging commitment of continually placing nature – which gives us life – at the centre of attention. “For most of history, humankind had to fight against nature in order to survive. In this century, we are beginning to realise that we must protect it in order to survive,” as King Charles III puts it.
“For four months, La Gacilly-Baden Photo has enriched our town with impressive images, moving stories and meaningful encounters. Year after year, the festival succeeds in inspiring people with a passion for photography, opening up new perspectives and addressing issues that affect us all. Just how personal and moving this exploration can be was particularly evident this year in the exhibition on Jane Goodall, with whom Baden had a special connection through her visits. It is this combination of art, humanity and social responsibility that makes the festival so valuable. “I am delighted that La Gacilly-Baden Photo has become an integral part of our town and has put Baden on the map far beyond its borders as a place of encounter and international photographic art,” Carmen Jeitler-Cincelli, Mayor of Baden, concludes.
WHAT OTHERS SAY
“What a wonderful event! A brilliant opening! A celebration of the art of photography and the photographers! An event rich in content! Brilliant“ Clemens Abrahamowicz, parish priest of Baden
“Such a joy to spend walks, talks, meals and laughs at @fotofestivalbaden. Days full of stories, adventures and incredible photography. Memorable.” Lars Boering, Director of the European Journalism Centre in Maastricht
“The cross-border partnership between Baden and La Gacilly, as well as the festival’s various themes, prove to be a transcultural, unifying triumph that does full justice to photography as a cultural asset.”
Claudia Schweizer, academic, Baden
“It has been incredibly motivating and inspiring.”
Josh Edgoose, photographer, London
“Brilliant!!!! What a success!!!! Heartfelt congratulations! Thank goodness for the photography festival!” Paul Leitenmüller, Leadersnet
“La Gacilly-Baden has now become one of the most important European photography festivals outside the traditional museum and trade fair formats. The combination of high-calibre photographic work, public spaces and international exchange makes the festival a model for how photography can remain visible and socially relevant in the future.”Thomas Gerwers, PF Publishing GmbH
“The arrangement of the photographs fits perfectly into the townscape. The ZIB1 report on ORF is a testament to the festival’s importance. In the atmosphere you have created, we have forged new friendships with wonderful international colleagues; it was a unique opportunity.” Maria and Christian Skrein, legendary photographer, St. Gilgen
“For me, La Gacilly-Baden is a particularly good example of how culture, tourism and international partnerships can work together successfully.” Alexandre Tischer, Lower Austrian Provincial Government, Department of Art and Culture, Head of Public Relations
“It was a truly inspiring and enriching experience. The exhibitions, conversations, and encounters made it a memorable visit.” Cinzia D’Ambrosi, Founder/Director Photojournalism Hub, London
„The new face of Baden. Your Baden event was fantastic”. Attila Varga, journalist, Budapest
“Thank you very much for the personalised guided tour of the photography exhibition! I found it truly unique. I’m already looking forward to next year’s edition.” Chris Dain, Deputy Head of Mission, Minister, British Embassy in Vienna
“The ‘FotoSommer’ has long been a fixture in Baden.” Gerhard Sokol, photographer, Vienna
“Brilliant – so stylish and moving.”
Sonja Happenhofer, Headteacher of BG/BRG Frauengasse, Baden
“I visited your exhibition in Baden today with two friends. My warmest congratulations on what you’ve achieved once again with ‘So British’. It was also incredibly busy – unbelievable. My friends were just as thrilled. What a wonderful addition to Baden.” Renate Danler, Consultant, Vienna
“WOW, dear Lois Lammerhuber! 🏆🎉 What a sensational award! I offer my heartfelt congratulations to you and your brilliant team! What you have created for our Baden with so much passion, creativity and dedication is simply unique! 👏👏👏 We can be incredibly proud of you! 🥂“
Manfred Matzinger-Leopold, Board Member, Austrian Mint
“What you have created with La Gacilly-Baden Photo is far more than a passion for photography – it is a vision brought to life through courage, foresight and tireless dedication. You transform Baden’s public spaces into a vibrant stage for contemporary photography, combining artistic excellence with international appeal and making important global issues accessible to a wide audience. This award honours not only the outstanding quality of the festival, but also the exceptional vision and commitment with which you are making a lasting impact on the European photography scene. A well-deserved recognition for an extraordinary achievement!” Ewald Hahn, Managing Director, CEWE Austria
“A ‘Photo Oscar’ for Baden”. Rudolf Preyer, oe24.at
“I reckon the trophy cabinet at the Lammerhuber household now looks rather like the display cabinet at Real Madrid’s stadium.” Peter-Matthias Gaede, Editor-in-Chief of GEO (1994–2014), Hamburg
“It is my deepest conviction that it is our duty to constantly seek humanistic and sustainable approaches to our relationship with nature and to our coexistence,” says festival director Lois Lammerhuber, commenting on the scale of the task at hand. “By raising awareness of pressing environmental issues as well as the beauty of our world, the festival embodies people’s desire for peace. We have clearly succeeded in this particularly well in our ninth festival year, which focused on the theme of water. The exhibition ‘Water Is Life’ was the undisputed hit with the public during the festival summer.”
THE ARTISTS
The 2026 festival focused on photographers from the United Kingdom, a country of contrasts and eccentricity, where tradition and modernity coexist in a fruitful symbiosis. These British artists explore political, social, environmental and identity-related themes with their very own British sensibility. ‘Led’ by the charismatic and now 91-year-old Sir Don McCullin and the late Sir Martin Parr, who sadly passed away far too soon, the exhibition featured works by Mary Turner, Tony Ray-Jones, Mike Taylor, Peter Dench, Josh Edgoose and Terry O’Neill. Their perspectives on the world were complemented by a tribute to Jane Goodall’s unique and world-changing life’s work by Richard Ladkani, an enchanting visual narrative by Esther Haase on the creative power of Vivienne Westwood and Andreas Kronthaler, and two works on the Beatles by Christian Skrein and Michel Bouvet.
The second narrative strand of the festival programme invited audiences to reflect on the increasing fragility of our ecosystems. Whilst Gina Soden, Cig Harvey, Françoise Huguier, Frédéric Noy, Axelle De Russé, Corey Arnold and François Fontaine explored this from a terrestrial perspective, under the thematic leadership of Helmut Habersack, Christin Gerstorfer, Günter Köck, Laurent Ballesta, Robert Doisneau, Stéphane Lavoué and Supratim Bhattacharjee explored our relationship with the nature of the ‘Blue Planet’ in the literal sense.
Last but not least, the festival showcased some very special themes to mark the 200th anniversary of photography. This unique art form, which revolutionised our understanding of the world, has been celebrated for a year since September 2026. Taking as its starting point a camera obscura from Christian Schörg’s collection, which made a striking impression in the spa gardens, Anna Atkins told us a story through photographs that, in 1843, illustrated a book for the first time in history; Sir Brian May did so with the historic 3D rarity ‘Diableries,’ Robert Capa with a retrospective of his unique photographic career, and Norbert Span with a close-up view of the inner beauty of dietary supplements – each in their own multifaceted and dazzling way – demonstrated what photography can contribute to our understanding of the world. The work of a high-calibre collective of photographers – Ana María Arévalo Gosen, Hans-Jürgen Burkard, Martina Draper, Nadia Ferroukhi, Jérôme Gence, Ulla Lohmann, Heinz Stephan Tesarek and, as team captains, Lois Lammerhuber and the author Thomas Brezina – brought the ‘dream of flying’ to life.
The bilateral photography project Pop Nature challenged schools in Lower Austria and Morbihan to approach nature through free, carefree, psychedelic, rhythmic and vibrant photographic perspectives. The focus was on the bright colours of a sparkling, vibrant and positive world.
“Photography raises awareness, touches people and brings to light those moments that shape our society. It captures signs of humanity and can have a lasting impact on how we view our world,” emphasises Christian Schörg, Master of the Lower Austrian Professional Photographers’ Guild. The exhibition by professional photographers from Lower Austria, “I Love Coffee, I Love Tea”, and the exhibition from the world’s largest photography competition – CEWE’s ‘Our World is Beautiful’, which received 656,738 entries from 153 countries – also followed in this tradition. These rounded off the festival, as did the AI-inspired work by Christoph Künne on the 450-year history of Manfred Schneider’s Annamühle bakery in Baden, and the retrospective on 2025 through the images of the Artist in Residence Sabine Starmayr with her book “Australia and the New World”, for which Elisabeth Steinkellner wrote the texts.
“Our festival inspires visitors to look, reflect and perhaps even take action; we see photography as a responsibility. This commitment has shaped the festival into an event whose social relevance is unique, thanks to the way it brings together artistic photography and photojournalism,” reflects Silvia Lammerhuber, the festival’s commercial director.
Klaus Lorenz, Baden’s Director of Tourism, adds, referring to the festival’s media days: “The La Gacilly-Baden Photo Festival is a key driver of our image transformation – from a spa town steeped in tradition to a modern, internationally recognised cultural metropolis. “So British!” particularly impressed me this year: first and foremost Peter Dench, who captures that unmistakable British humour in his photographs with plenty of irony and a wonderfully quirky take on everyday life.”
VISITOR CENTRE
We are very proud that, for the first time this year, the festival ran its own visitor centre – seven days a week, for four months. This was only possible because 62 volunteers worked tirelessly to keep things running smoothly. Many of them are students from the Grafische in Vienna who were doing their work placements with us. They were on hand to answer every conceivable question from visitors and encouraged them to buy the festival catalogue, the festival bags – unique items made from last year’s tarpaulins – and many other festival-specific items. What’s more, they filmed videos about the festival for our social media activities – and braved the elements even during this summer’s heatwaves. Thank you!
KISS BOX
You might think that the kiss has long since been exhausted as a subject. From Ovid to Netflix, from the first teenage party to the final farewell on the platform – people kiss everywhere. But what remains of that moment once the lips part again? What if we could suddenly make this wordless language visible? The Austrian scientist and photographer Norbert Span, internationally renowned for his photographs of snow crystals, has developed a method exclusively for the festival that takes the kiss into a new dimension.
Those who took part received not just a photograph in the ‘Kiss-Box’ at our visitor centre, but a new perspective on what photography can achieve: bringing the invisible into focus and blurring the boundaries between the body, emotion and the visual arts. Thus, the fleeting kiss becomes a frozen moment that endures. An image that not only shows, but reveals what connects us.
PHOTO FESTIVAL APP
As well as the solar eclipse, 12 August 2026 brought with it another event long awaited by photography enthusiasts: the halfway point of the ninth edition of the Festival La Gacilly-Baden Photo. And what better way to celebrate this special day than with the launch of the official Festival La Gacilly-Baden Photo app for Android smartphones and iPhones! Download it here now: https://lagacilly-baden.photo/app In this trilingual app (German, English, French), you’ll find: all the exhibitions, all the photographers, and all the directions. But also: places of interest, restaurants, wine taverns, hotels, shops and, of course, all the public toilets. As a very special highlight, the app features original audio recordings from the participating photographers. This makes the festival app your personal audio guide! And best of all: the app is free! Special thanks for developing the app go to Christian Knotek, denkmanufaktur.at. Hats off!
CULTURE OF SOLIDARITY
Guided by this principle, the collaboration with festival partners Garten Tulln – where the CEWE exhibition “Our World is Beautiful” was shown – and the Bratislava Month of Photography – featuring works by Cig Harvey, Don McCullin, Josh Edgoose and Peter Dench – continued in 2026 as well. And the exhibition “Aufgegessen!” from the 2025 programme moved to Weissensee.
39 photographers and 104 journalists, ranging from Stern to Le Figaro Magazine and GEO, and from ORF television to derStandard and Ö1 Morgenjournal, represented the who’s who of the European media landscape. They were joined by the directors of leading photography institutions such as Václav Macek from EMOP in Bratislava, István Virágvölgyifrom the Capa Centre in Budapest, Lars Boering from the European Journalism Centre in Maastricht, and Emiliano Covello and Pedro Pereira from the IPFA in Barcelona.
To conclude, let’s take a look back at the start of the festival
There are events that simply fulfil their purpose. And there are events that captivate the audience from the very first minute right through to the very last. The opening of the La Gacilly-Baden Photo 2026 Festival undoubtedly fell into the latter category. The highlight of the evening was the photo concert. Large-format projections of photographs from this year’s exhibitions were accompanied by a medley of famous songs by The Beatles and Queen. Image and sound merged into a single production that literally carried the audience through the various stages of the festival to the sounds of Pavel Singer’s arrangements, performed by the Baden Stage Orchestra under the baton of Michael Zehetner. An evening that set new standards – a total work of art combining photography and music! It was enjoyed not only by the British Ambassador, Lindsay Skoll, and the French Ambassador, Matthieu Peyraud, but by all the guests at the Stadttheater. And when the orchestra played an encore, the audience gave a standing ovation, singing the chorus ‘La, La, Lalalala’ from the song Hey Jude with great enthusiasm and without tiring.
PHOTO FESTIVAL OF THE YEAR In keeping with the 2026 host country, the United Kingdom, Corporate Life Wire from Birmingham has honoured our festival with one of over 300 ‘Innovation and Excellence Awards’, which are presented annually worldwide. In the Photography category, 17 projects across seven countries were recognised – the UK, Portugal, Italy, Canada, Australia, the USA and Austria. According to the IPFA in Barcelona, there are approximately 1,500 photography festivals worldwide.
The jury was particularly impressed by “how the festival succeeds in transforming Baden’s public spaces into a vibrant and inspiring platform for contemporary photography, whilst pursuing a clear artistic vision. With its meticulous curatorial approach, its international collaborations and its engagement with key global issues, the festival continually forges new, meaningful connections between photographers and the public. The successful combination of broad, barrier-free and low-threshold accessibility, cultural rigour and environmental awareness has played a key role in establishing the La Gacilly-Baden Photo Festival as a significant and enduring force on the European photography scene.”
UNANIMOUS! On 22 June 2026, following a detailed and very positive discussion, the Baden Town Council voted to extend the photography festival until 2029. Pure joy!