At a time when images are increasingly shaped by manipulation, speed, and spectacle, Xposure International Photography Festival 2026 turns its attention back to the human face as one of the most enduring records of truth. The People & Portraiture Zone, part of the festival’s landmark 10th edition, examines portrait photography as a space where identity, memory, and lived experience are held with care, responsibility, and depth.
Held at Aljada, Sharjah from 29 January to 4 February 2026, the Zone presents six exhibitions by photographers working across documentary, cinematic, and research-driven practices. Together, the works reflect how portraiture continues to bear witness to personal and collective histories, even as the nature of images themselves becomes increasingly unstable.
Framed within the festival’s theme, “A Decade of Visual Storytelling”, the People & Portraiture Zone positions the portrait not as a static image, but as a long-term relationship between the photographer and its subject. Across the exhibitions, faces become archives of survival, belonging, loss, and cultural identity, revealing how the human story unfolds over time rather than in a single moment.
6 photographers, 6 approaches to portraiture
The photographers brought together in the People & Portraiture Zone represent a rare convergence of specialised practices within contemporary portraiture. Each operates at the intersection of craft, inquiry, and cultural authorship. Tarik Khoja approaches the portrait as a study of visual identity, drawing from heritage, place, and the subtle codes of belonging that shape how individuals are seen within their societies. Pulitzer Prize–winning photojournalist Deanne Fitzmaurice contributes one of the most recognised long-form human narratives of recent decades through Operation Lion Heart, a sustained body of work that examines recovery and resilience in the aftermath of conflict with both rigour and restraint. Ana Backhaus works within the intimate territory of the family archive, using documentary photography to trace memory, intergenerational connection, and loss as lived experience rather than subject matter.
Pete Muller brings a cinematic precision to portraiture, constructing images where movement, presence, and psychological tension define character beyond the static frame. In The Faces of Mexico: A Study In Truth & Perception, Richard Cawood challenges the boundaries of photographic truth through high-contrast portrait studies informed by his research into artificial intelligence and perception, while Mohammed Muhtasib centres women and cultural identity as enduring social narratives, positioning portraiture as both documentation and cultural testimony.
Conversations on image, ethics, and human storytelling
Beyond the exhibitions, the Zone extends into a programme of live talks led by participating photographers, offering audiences an insight into how portraits are conceived, developed, and sustained over time. The sessions address not only image-making techniques, but also the ethical questions that arise when working with trauma, vulnerability, and personal histories. These include “Image-Making Between Art and Imagination” and “Saleh’s Story” on 1 February, and “How Stories Can Save Us”, a conversation with Ana Backhaus, on 4 February.
“A Decade of Visual Storytelling”
Organised by the Sharjah Government Media Bureau (SGMB), Xposure 2026 represents the festival’s most globally positioned edition to date, bringing together more than 420 photographers, filmmakers, and visual artists across 95 exhibitions and 3,200 artworks, alongside a programme of talks, workshops, and portfolio reviews. The festival’s international awards programme received 29,000 photography submissions and 634 film entries from 60 countries, underscoring the growing cultural urgency surrounding visual storytelling today.
Registration to visit the festival is now open at xposure.net.
