ACTIVATION : NO-PHOTO AT ARLES IN 2025
Activation Against Complicity and Silence
This year, NO-PHOTO presented a site-specific activation during the opening week of the 2025 edition of the Rencontres d’Arles, which ran from July 7 to October 5, 2025.
NO-PHOTO began as a counter-festival in 2024, in response to one of Australia’s photography festivals which, like many other cultural institutions, refused to acknowledge the unfolding atrocity in Gaza, instead claiming an apolitical stance when faced with criticism. This was an ironic disavowal, given the overtly political imagery featured throughout their program. At that point, over 124 Palestinian photographers and journalists had been killed. NO-PHOTO emerged from this dissonance: a refusal to accept political aesthetics without political accountability, and a call for cultural institutions to align their visual language with ethical clarity and action.
THE ACTIVATION
At Arles 2025, NO-PHOTO installed a series of dual posters across selected locations. The first poster featured a black rectangle matching the ratio of a specific image captured in Gaza by a local photographer—many of whom had since been killed (176 photographers and journalists as of 12 June 2025). The second poster featured a poetic text, written in collaboration with poets and writers, describing the image in evocative, metaphorical language, in the format of an alt text. These writings invited reflection, not spectacle. Each poster was captioned with the photographer’s name, the date, and the location of the photograph. The black shape served as a space of absence and mourning, refusing to reduce these images, and their subjects, to the violence the world had subjected them to. They stood as acknowledgements of inaction, of the disturbing passivity that continued to surround this atrocity.
The members of NO-PHOTO and the collaborators remained anonymous; only the photographers’ names were acknowledged.
A new edition of Doubledummy’s free newspaper, featuring “SEEING GENOCIDE: WEAPONIZATION OF IMAGES” by Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, was released to mark the occasion. Free physical copies still available or download it here.
For ongoing documentation and updates, follow @no_photo2025 on Instagram.
NO-PHOTO25
NO- PHOTO began as a counter-festival in response to the Melbourne–Naarm’s, a major event showcasing the work of both established and contemporary photographers from diverse backgrounds. While the festival prominently featured images of black, brown, queer, and politically situated bodies and landscapes, its institutional silence on the war in Gaza, at the height of its violence during the festival’s opening, revealed a clear contradiction. At that point, over 124 Palestinian photographers and journalists had been killed. Despite presenting itself as globally engaged and politically aware, the festival, which receives funding from Zionist-aligned sources, refused to acknowledge the unfolding atrocity. When questioned by artists and notable members of the community about the absence of any reference to Palestine or the war, the organisers claimed an apolitical position—an ironic disavowal, given the political imagery and black and brown faces that dominated their posters and promotional materials. NO- PHOTO emerged in response to this dissonance: a refusal to accept political branding without political accountability, and a demand for cultural institutions to match their visual language with ethical clarity and action.