Pavlovka Pinhole Fest

Pavlovka pinholefest is a festival of photographs created without a lens.

Since 2017, Pavlovka ArtGallery annually holds Pavlovka pinhole fest. This is a festival of pinhole photography; authors from almost all corners of the world take part in it.

The goal is to unite photo artists of the world, who use an old photographic tradition in their work. This is the only Ukrainian festival that introduces the wide audience to the achievements of the pinhole photography community of the world.

The national peculiarities are being explored and intercultural contacts are being made through the prism of pinhole.

The festival spreads the pinhole movement in Ukraine and abroad, it presents this cultural phenomenon to the public, gives the artists an opportunity to share their artworks, and engages young people in photography.

In 2018 the Polish pinhole week and Hungarian pinhole week, in 2019 The Lithuanian and Belarusnian pinhole took place as part of the festival in the course of which the influence of national and mental peculiarities on the work of artists was explored.

In 2020 the festival was held with the theme Love in the time of Cholera. Using photography as a tool of magic realism, we explore intricacies between love and the transience of being, interspersed with the distortion of time, or even, its collapse. We offered authors to open the veil and, through a pinhole, show what is most important to them.

In 2022, Pavlovka ArtGallery continues the series of festivals on existential themes. The theme of Pavlovka Pinhole Fest 2022 was “I, bridge-builder”. The main question of the festival in connection with the military events in Ukraine is “Who am I in the war?” Through pinhole and other alternative techniques, authors from all over the world reflect on this topic.

In the same year, an alternative photography section was added – analogue photographs taken with homemade cameras and/or lenses; photographs printed using alternative printing techniques (cyanotype, gum-oil, litho-print, etc.) as well as those taken without a camera (lumenprints, chemigrams, etc.).

In 2023 we explored the theme of reflection of the inner and outer world. That was the main message of “The Mirror” and in 2024 human existence in a certain habitat. In 2025, we were interested in the forms of memory – collective and individual memory.

During eight years more than 100 photographers almost 50 countries participated in the festival.