Photography Festival 'T3' to be Held for 24 Days from October 3, 2026, Across Urban Spaces in Yaesu, Nihonbashi, and Kyobashi, Tokyo

Culture is born where technology, talent, and tolerance—the three Ts—intersect.

Under this concept, the photography festival 'T3,' welcoming top artists and curators from major cultural institutions worldwide, is preparing for its 8th edition.

[2026 Theme | 'and (&)']

'And' is the smallest conjunction in the Japanese language.

Yet, this tiny character may be what shapes the world.

'Self and others,' 'man and woman,' 'nature and city'—we have unconsciously used 'and' as a divider to choose one over the other. However, as terms like 'two sides of the same coin' or 'yin and yang' suggest, Asia has always embraced a worldview beyond binary opposition.

Photography is inherently the art of 'and.' The gaze of the photographer and the subject intersect; fragments of the photographed world are arranged and connected, allowing the artwork and the viewer to quietly meet.

T3 2026 will be a 24-day exploration of the world’s possibilities through the smallest conjunction—'and'—in collaboration with photographers from around the globe.

EXHIBITIONS

Four exhibitions are announced in advance. The remaining artists, including the second main exhibition, will be revealed in early August.

[Main Exhibition 1]

Lucas Foglia

Venue | Tokyo Midtown Yaesu

Constant Bloom

The Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) is the butterfly with the longest migration in the world. As it travels from Africa through the Middle East and across the Mediterranean to Europe, Lucas Foglia documents the journeys of people who, like the butterfly, cross borders.

'Constant Bloom' reimagines nature and humanity, ecosystems and political borders—not as separate entities, but as a continuous landscape. When butterfly migration and human migration overlap, the ambiguity of what we call 'boundaries' quietly emerges.

Lucas Foglia

Born in 1983 in the United States. Graduated from Brown University (BFA, 2005) and Yale University (MFA, 2010). Consistently exploring the relationship between humans and nature, Foglia transforms social issues into photography through a distinct aesthetic and lyrical perspective. Selected as a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow. His works are held and exhibited at institutions including the International Center of Photography (ICP), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Denver Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. His sixth monograph, 'Constant Bloom' (Nazraeli Press, 2025), has received global acclaim.

[Curated Exhibition 1]

Sarah van Rij

Venue | Tokyo Building Nihonbashi + Sanei Building

Atlas of Echoes (Provisional)

Is Sarah van Rij walking through cities to document them, or to construct them? Without answering this question, she presses the shutter. Passersby become characters in an urban theater; silhouettes behind windows, falling shadows, and fragments of moving hands are woven into poetic narratives. For T3, works created while walking through Paris, New York, and Seoul will be displayed on the exterior walls of Sanei Building and the interior spaces of Tokyo Building Nihonbashi, incorporating Tokyo’s cityscape as a new stage for the artwork.

Sarah van Rij

Born in 1990 in the Netherlands. Self-taught photographer, currently based in Amsterdam and Paris. She creates works capturing fragments of daily life on the streets of cities such as New York, Paris, and Seoul. Her nostalgic yet contemporary style evokes the feeling of a dream once seen.

[Curated Exhibition 2]

Antony Cairns, PIDAN | STUDIO + Expanding Contemporary Photography

Venue | TODA BUILDING

STUDIO+ | Expanding Contemporary Photography #2

International Co-Curated Project with Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP)

Photography has long been a medium that 'takes' images to cut out the world, inherently embracing oppositions such as 'self and other,' 'light and shadow,' 'documentation and expression.' Yet in today’s world, where the tools from shooting to output continue to evolve, the boundaries of photography have become increasingly fluid and ambiguous. Contemporary photographic artists effortlessly cross the rigid lines drawn by modernism, bridging opposing binaries to open new forms of expression.

This exhibition is an international co-curated project in collaboration with MEP (Paris), which operates 'STUDIO'—a platform to launch emerging artists and experimental photographic practices onto the global stage. With intersections of 'France and Japan,' 'Paris and Tokyo,' and 'institutional exhibition spaces and interstitial urban gaps,' this exhibition embodies the very theme of T3 PHOTO FESTIVAL TOKYO 2026: 'and (&)'—through its curatorial structure.

Antony Cairns

Born in 1980 in London. A leading contemporary photographer who merges traditional silver gelatin techniques with obsolete digital technologies to reconstruct nocturnal cityscapes as data on unconventional supports. For this exhibition, he presents 'PXL CTY,' a project abstracting urban footage shot with 1980s toy video cameras 'PXL2000' (exhibited at MEP Studio, Tate Modern's 'Shape of Light,' Rencontres d'Arles, etc.).

PIDAN

Born in China, based in Tokyo. An artist exploring the transformation of matter into image and the shifting nature of perception, questioning the world’s 'recognition' and 'misrecognition.' For this exhibition, he presents part of 'The Delusion of Taking a Grain of the Universe / Arrival Without Movement,' starting from the taboo that 'moving a stone will disrupt the balance of the world.' (KG+Select Nominee, TOKYO FRONT LINE Award 2025 Runner-up)

MEP (Maison Européenne de la Photographie) is a leading international institution for photographic art in Paris, France, hosting exhibitions from renowned to next-generation artists. Its 'STUDIO' program is a pioneering initiative offering debut solo exhibitions to emerging artists, with MEP covering production costs and providing artist fees—a supportive model rare in the field. This program fosters interdisciplinary collaborations between photography, literature, film, and science.