Vienna transforms into a photography capital this fall as the Foto Wien festival presents groundbreaking artistic perspectives on society, artificial intelligence, and future visions. Running from October 3 to November 2, 2025, the festival showcases works by 333 artists across 99 venues throughout the city, ranging from major museums to alternative art spaces.
The festival's central theme, "dynamic futures," explores whether cities are moving toward a dark future or one that opens up utopian possibilities. Festival director Felix Hoffmann explains that this guiding concept shaped the entire programming approach, bringing together diverse viewpoints from activists to documentary photographers.
A flagship exhibition at Foto Arsenal Wien, titled "Science/Fiction: A non-history of plants," turns traditional botanical photography on its head. The show examines how plants have played crucial roles in photography since the medium's inception in the mid-19th century, serving as ideal subjects due to their beauty, stillness, and dreamlike qualities. Dutch artist Elspeth Diederix's "The Miracle Garden" series features a bronze-shimmering foxglove (Digitalis ferruginea) suspended in dark green space, creating an otherworldly, almost alien presence.
The exhibition raises important questions about ecological perspectives and the implications of plants serving merely aesthetic roles in AI-generated imagery. Spanish photographer Joan Fontcuberta's historic "Herbarium" series from 1984 demonstrates how photographers created illusions long before artificial intelligence. His work "Giliandria escoliforcia" appears to be a scientifically objective documentation but actually depicts a completely fictional plant species.
The plant-focused exhibition features works by over 40 international artists, spanning from 19th-century pioneers like Anna Atkins to contemporary voices such as Agnieszka Polska. This comprehensive survey illustrates the evolution of botanical photography and its relationship with truth and fiction in visual representation.
Other notable exhibitions include the "Fresh Eye" project at Collegium Hungaricum, which seeks new approaches to street photography. Winner Dénes Erdős presents his work "Becs" (Vienna), offering fresh perspectives on how photographers conceptualize urban environments. The exhibition runs through October 30.
The Galerie Ostlicht presents "Funga Foto Fest" beginning October 6, focusing on fungi as essential ecosystem components that typically remain hidden from view. Barry Webb's photograph of "Auriscalpium vulgare" (Scaly Tooth mushroom) growing on pine cones exemplifies how the exhibition reveals the complex ways fungi grow, communicate, and shape our world.
Activist photography takes center stage in "Things are closer than they seem" at Semmelweisklinik, opening October 4. Marlene Limburg's powerful image captures two activists with glued hands at Brandenburg Gate, whom police doused with oil to separate them, highlighting contemporary protest movements and their documentation.
Identity and connection themes emerge in "First Roll, Kate and Odie" at the Czech Center Vienna, starting October 3. Czech photographer Marie Tomanova met fellow Czech Kate through social media in New York, creating intimate portraits including the bathroom scene "Kate and Odie," which became the cover image for "Young American."
The festival also explores traditional craftsmanship through Daniel Kindler's barn photographs at the University of Applied Arts' Department for Site-Specific Art, opening October 13. His exhibition "very unintelligent work" features digitally manipulated barn images processed with Photoshop rather than AI, emphasizing the simplicity and functionality of traditional farm buildings.
Hoffmann emphasizes the festival's dual mission: increasing Vienna's international recognition in photography while helping local residents appreciate photography as an essential part of their cultural heritage. "Photography isn't just art, it's cultural heritage. We constantly interact with it," he explains, underscoring photography's role beyond mere artistic expression.
The diverse programming spans from cheerful summer vibes captured during Vienna's 2024 heat wave to elegant vacation scenes from Nice's Promenade des Anglais in 1934. Abstract light studies appear alongside documentary photographs of mass strikes in Scotland, demonstrating photography's vast range of expression and documentation.
Festival headquarters are located at Arsenal Object 19A in Vienna's third district, serving as the central hub for this month-long celebration of photographic arts. The ambitious scope reflects photography's growing importance in contemporary culture and its power to address urgent social, environmental, and technological questions facing society today.
