From visitor to exhibitor: Photo London 2026

As some of you might have seen online already, this May I will be showing work at Photo London 2026 as part of Rethinking Eastern Europe.

Photo London is the UK's leading photography fair, and this will be our first time presenting at this scale. We will be at stand J12-13 in the Discovery section. If you are attending, I would love to see you there, please come say hi.

I won't pretend this isn't a little surreal.

Going to Photo London has been a yearly ritual of mine for the past five years. Making sure I had at least a day saved with no other plans, going alone to make sure I had all the time I needed to see everything and sit with pieces for as long as I wanted. Saving artists' names and researching them online, taking notice of projects I related to, or visual styles that spoke to me, it has always been a feast. Leaving Somerset House, the fair's long-time home, at the end of the day, I felt inspired and richer, with an archive of references to look back to. 

This year I will be the one hoping someone stops and stays a while.

When in late February Zula Rabikowska told us about the opportunity to be part of this year's edition, I couldn't believe what I was reading. The powerhouse that she is, she secured an invitation for Rethinking Eastern Europe, and here we are, preparing at full speed for what is shaping up to be a significant moment for all of us.

We will be at Olympia, the fair's new location, from 13 to 17 May 2026, with a VIP preview on 13 May. The Discovery section, curated by Charlotte Jansen, is dedicated to emerging and boundary-pushing voices in photography, and being part of it, alongside eleven artists whose work I deeply respect, is not something I take lightly.

I will be showing work from my Time Capsule series, an ongoing exploration of memory, possessions, and place rooted in my grandparents' home in a small village on the banks of the Danube in Southeast Romania.

There is something powerful about bringing work that is so specifically Romanian, so rooted in one family's story, into conversation with artists grappling with similar questions from their own corners of Eastern Europe. The particular becomes shared. The personal becomes collective.

My fellow Romanian Laura Bivolaru will be there too, and I am curious whether there are any other Romanian artists showing work at the fair this year. If you know someone, please let me know. I would love to meet them there.

I am also genuinely curious how the work will be received by such an international audience. I will be back with the honest impressions after the event.

In the meantime, the Rethinking Eastern Europe website is now live at rethinkingeasterneurope.com. It brings together all the artists, our exhibition history, and full details of our Photo London participation. Well worth a visit.

The twelve artists exhibiting at Photo London:

Alexandra Joanna Baker, Diana Serban, Ksenia Kazintseva, Laura Bivolaru, Magda Kuca, Marcelina Amelia, Maria Gvardeitseva, Michaela Nagyidaiová, Paulina Korobkiewicz, Vera Hadzhiyska, Zsuzsanna Ida Papp, Zula Rabikowska