Paper Photo Festival (PPF) 2025 is a new international festival based in Katowice (Poland), which focuses on photobooks as an autonomous form of artistic expression, equivalent to exhibitions, multimedia projections, etc. Photobooks give creators greater freedom for uncompromising artistic expression; they are signed, limited edition, and numbered. Visual artists are increasingly turning to this form. The collectible value of photobooks can be comparable to that of “normal” works of art.

In the second half of the 20th century, photographic publications became an important form of popularizing artistic photography. With the changes in the printing market at the beginning of the 21st century, photobooks emerged worldwide as a new form of artistic expression. This was accompanied by a significant increase in the number of publishers focusing on this area of activity – according to industry reports, there were 92 such publishers worldwide in 1999, and 485 in 2021.

Poland has also seen a sharp increase in the number of art books published. According to a report by the Polish National Library, between 2001 and 2022, there was an almost 700% increase in the number of publications classified as “fine arts, graphics, photography” (while the total number of other book titles increased by 50% during this period). As a result, in 2022, the Polish National Library introduced a new subcategory: art books, most of which are photobooks.

The festival will take place in the gallery spaces of the Katowice – City of Gardens Cultural Institution (galleries: Pusta, Galeria Miasta Ogrodów, 5, Engram, Pojedyncza). During the festival, the following will be presented:

• Approximately 30 of the best photobooks and dummies as part of the post-competition exhibition,
• Approximately 80-100 books in total as part of three curated exhibitions,
• Approximately 100 student publications,
• Approximately 20 lectures, meetings with authors, and photobook launches.
  In total, this will be a presentation of approx. 240-260 works and 150 artists.
  Admission to all events is free!

Already in 2024, we prepared – on a trial basis – Paper Photo. Prologue, an exhibition of photographic publications by mostly Polish authors. We presented 52 publications, all of which could be picked up and browsed through. The exhibition was curated by Jakub Dziewit in collaboration with Katarzyna Łata. The list of books presented is available here. The exhibition attracted a lot of interest, which confirmed our belief that the idea of organizing a festival was well-founded.