Bristol Photo Festival 2026: Time Machine

Bristol Photo Festival is an international biennial of contemporary photography. Entitled Time Machine, this edition of the festival explores how we inhabit layered time.

We are showing two exhibitions at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery as part of Bristol Photo Festival

‘People of Clay’ by Akshay Mahajan (2016–present) – Top floor exhibition gallery 3

This project traces the hidden histories embedded along the Brahmaputra River as it winds through India’s Goalpara region and across the border into northern Bangladesh. Akshay Mahajan seeks to reverse this erasure by reconstructing the layers of story, myth and memory that shape the region. The result is a subjective map, formed through slow observation, listening and engagement.

Commission supported by Art Fund and the Friends of Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives

‘Persistence Studies’ by Sheida Soleimani – The Balcony Gallery

In avian ecology, ‘persistence studies’ measure how long birds remain present within a landscape before disappearing. Focusing on European starlings and house sparrows, the exhibition considers shifting ideas of native and invasive, alongside broader questions of belonging.

Supported by the Brigstow Institute at the University of Bristol