COLOGNE.- What can photography reveal—and what remains beyond its reach? This question will guide Not Knowing — Photography and the Unknown, a four-day congress presented by the Internationale Photoszene Köln from October 22 to 25, 2026, at the Orangerie Theater in Cologne.
Bringing together artists, scholars, archivists, designers, performers and thinkers from a wide range of disciplines, the congress will examine photography not simply as a tool for documenting reality or producing knowledge, but as a medium shaped by uncertainty, absence, projection and speculation.
The event will serve as the discursive opening of the 2027 Photoszene Festival and will focus on what becomes possible when not knowing is treated not as a weakness, but as a productive condition.
Rather than asking photography to provide certainty, the congress will consider how images can expose the instability of perception, evidence and truth. Its central premise is that uncertainty can create space for new forms of insight, encourage artistic experimentation and challenge dominant systems of knowledge.
Photography beyond certainty
The program is organized around four thematic areas: Perception, Practices, Traces and Potentials.
Together, these sections will explore the limits of human and technological vision, artistic methods that engage with gaps and fragments, the role of archives and omissions, and the ways photography can contribute to imagining speculative futures.
Lectures, conversations, workshops, performances and screenings will create a setting in which different forms of knowledge—and different forms of not knowing—can meet.
The congress asks audiences to reconsider the expectation that photographs must explain, prove or make things visible. Instead, it proposes that images may also conceal, distort, interrupt or leave questions unresolved.
This approach places uncertainty at the center of photographic experience. It also raises broader questions about how knowledge is produced, who controls it and which histories or perspectives are excluded from view.
An international and interdisciplinary program
The congress will feature contributions from artists and thinkers including Tasneem Almamar, Lasse Branding, Myriam Grigalashvili, Lilian Haberer, Jana Johanna Haeckel, Orit Halpern, Tom Holert, Su Yu Hsin, Ana Hupe, Celine Kapoor, Marie Köhler, Karina Nimmerfall, Sophie-Charlotte Opitz, Julian Peschel, Julia Richard, Sonja Riegler, Danielle Rosales, Jens Schröter, Nada Rosa Schroer, Anja Schürmann, Urs Stahel, Daniel Stier, Viktoriia Tymonova, Bindi Vora, Munem Wasif and Tobias Zielony, among others.
The program will also include a conversation with the archive directors participating in the Artist Meets Archive #5 residencies. Maurice Cox, Adelheid Komenda, Berit Schallner, Anne Stukenborg and Thomas Thorausch will appear in discussion with Daria Bona.
Students will also contribute through collaborations with three academic institutions: the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, represented by Andreas Langfeld and Konstantin Butz; the Cologne University of Music and Dance, with Professor Constanze Schellow; and SRH University Berlin, with Professor Anna Rosa Krau.
By bringing together different professional and educational backgrounds, the organizers aim to move the discussion beyond conventional boundaries between art, research, media and archival practice.
Not knowing as a creative method
The congress is designed for a broad audience, including people interested in photography and contemporary art, as well as students, researchers, designers and professionals working in museums, universities, media, archives and image-based fields.
At the heart of the event is the idea that not knowing can become a creative method. It can function as an opening, a form of inquiry or a tentative movement through unfamiliar territory.
The congress does not seek to resolve uncertainty or replace it with fixed conclusions. Instead, it aims to create a shared space in which incomplete knowledge, unanswered questions and conflicting perspectives can remain active.
The organizers describe this process as a collective exploration of terrain that can never be completely illuminated.
Accessibility and participation
The Internationale Photoszene Köln has emphasized its intention to make the congress accessible to as many participants as possible.
The event venues will be barrier-free, and childcare will be available during the congress. After purchasing tickets, attendees will be invited to communicate individual accessibility needs so that organizers can respond as effectively as possible.
Not Knowing — Photography and the Unknown will take place from October 22 to 25, 2026, at the Orangerie Theater, located at Volksgartenstraße 25 in Cologne.
The congress is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Kunststiftung NRW, Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Rheinland and Sparkasse KölnBonn. The Internationale Photoszene Köln receives institutional funding from the City of Cologne.
