The Cape Town Photography Festival is underway in the CBD, with visual storytellers returning to the city's premier galleries and heritage spaces.
You don't need to travel far to experience it, with several central venues offering the chance to discover compelling photo series, while public landmarks provide open-air cultural trails.
Here are some of the best places for viewing exhibitions in Cape Town.
Exhibitions
Sequins/Sequence
Sequins/ Sequence is a long-term photographic project by Cape Town-born artist Ashley Walters, documenting the vivid world of Latin and Ballroom dance in the Western Cape. Walters highlights the endurance, intimate rituals, and quiet rehearsals that underpin each performance. His images capture moments of pause, repetition, and showmanship - framing dance not just as a sport, but as a vital vehicle for community, aspiration, and collective memory.
When: Runs until Thursday, September 17
Where: Ava Gallery, 35 Church Street, Cape Town
Witness: Alf Kumalo and the Long 1976
Witness: Alf Kumalo and the Long 1976 is a photographic exhibition featuring ten pivotal works by Alf Kumalo.
Moving beyond a single day, the collection functions as a visual essay documenting the "long 1976" - tracing the atmospheric pressure leading up to 16 June, the explosive youth uprising against the oppressive Bantu Education system, state violence, and the subsequent work of mourning.
Kumalo's lens moves through charged sites of South Africa's evolving political consciousness. Capturing the pivotal era when students transformed classrooms into battlefields and emerged as a decisive force for liberation, the exhibition frames these historical fragments as enduring testaments to the national conscience.
When: Runs until Wednesday, September 30
Where: Peffers Fine Art, First Floor, Radio House, 92 Loop Street, Cape Town
Shooting Stars
Shooting Stars is a multi-perspective photographic exhibition curated by Carsten Rasch. The exhibition weaves together four solo bodies of work that capture the transformative power of live music and subculture across eras and continents. Together, the four photographers illuminate how music bridges local identity and global culture across generations.
When: Runs until Sunday, September 27.
Where: WORLDART, 68 Long Street, cnr Shortmarket Street
Palingenesis
Palingenesis is a photographic exhibition by Justin Dingwall exploring the theme of rebirth and ongoing self-transformation. The exhibition traces a visual progression from a single butterfly to figures completely enveloped in swarms, illustrating how transformation shifts from external ornament to full embodiment.
When: Runs until Sunday, September 27.
Where: Eclectica Contemporary, 56 Church Street, Cape Town
Fleeting Glimpses
Fleeting Glimpses: A Photo Journey of a Breast Cancer Survivor is a documentary photographic exhibition by Karina Turok and Karen Stewart. The series illuminates the intimate, hidden, and psychological transformations that follow a breast cancer diagnosis. Through raw documentary storytelling, the exhibition captures the complex path to healing - highlighting resilience, emotional vulnerability, and profound strength that emerge within a woman's hardest moments.
When: Runs until Friday, October 30.
Where: Mullers Gallery, 104 Longmarket Street, Cape Town
The Truth Between
The Truth Between is a photographic exhibition by Tony Meintjes which pairs images selected from a personal archive spanning over five decades - from 1970s student work to photographs from 2025. Presented as diptychs chosen through intuitive curation, the exhibition shifts focus from the individual merit of a single photograph to the unexpected graphic, symbolic, and temporal connections forged when two images sit side by side.
When: Runs until Friday, September 25
Where: Alliance Française du Cap, 155 Loop Street, Cape Town
Naturally Embracing Divine Truth
Naturally Embracing Divine Truth is a photographic exhibition by Gary Hirson that explores spiritual devotion as it unfolds in the natural landscape. Spurred by a curiosity about outdoor religious practices, Hirson spent years photographing the Sunday rituals of African Zionist congregations in open fields, later expanding the project to document Pentecostal baptism ceremonies along the Atlantic coastline.
The series places the artist's own spiritual connection to nature in conversation with the sacred expressions of these communities.
When: Runs until Sunday, September 27
Where: Axis Art Gallery, 125 De Waterkant Street, Cape Town
