A city known for its architecture, music, and paintings switches focus to another art form for around three weeks at the Foto Wien photography festival.
- A long celebration of photography around Vienna
- Exhibitions, workshops, talks and more
- Next festival: TBA (was Mar 9 – Mar 27 in 2022)
- See also:
A celebration of photography
(Photogenic home of the festival organisers)
Organised by the excellent Kunst Haus Wien (which includes the Hundertwasser museum), consider Foto Wien a celebration of the art of photography, a showcase for photographic initiatives and photographers, and a focus for all those with a love of the medium to come together at talks, workshops, exhibitions etc.
What do you get?
To give you an idea of what to expect, over 160 exhibitions and 300 events were planned for the 2022 event that ended in March. Two particular thematic highlights were Female Photographers in Focus and Rethinking Nature.
Browse the festival website to review the full programme for 2023 (once available). As you explore the exhibition listings, look out for some unusual venues that might include the likes of Café Prückel (one of Vienna’s great coffee houses and a 2022 participant).
Although activities take place across the city, Foto Wien has a festival HQ with its own events.
The 2019 festival centre occupied the former Post Office Savings Bank (Postsparkasse), itself an iconic piece of architecture and design by Otto Wagner. In 2022, the honour passed to the Atelier Augarten, the former studio complex of the sculptor Gustinus Ambrosi. I await details of the successor location.
2023 tickets and dates
The next Foto Wien seems most likely to take place in March (but 2023 dates TBA). This will be the third edition, since the festival skipped both 2020 and 2021, unfortunately (thanks, COVID).
See the website for the 2023 situation regarding tickets and access to individual events, once available.
How to get to Foto Wien
I will update this for the 2023 festival centre once announced. This was how to reach the 2022 HQ…
The Atelier Augarten is just off the Augarten, a large Baroque park with its own rather incongruous WWII flak tower.
Tram/bus: take trams 2 or 5 to Am Tabor. Catch the 5, for example, from Westbahnhof station, Friedensbrücke station (U4 subway) or Praterstern station (U1 and U2 subway). Or the 2 from the Ringstrassen around the old town.
Alternatively, take the U2 subway to Taborstraße and go for a walk through the park to reach the Atelier.
Address: Scherzergasse 1A, 1020 Vienna (2022 festival HQ)