An Ethical Compass

At the heart of the 9th Triennial are three guiding concepts – Alliance, Infinity and Love – each rooted in the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, whose writings on responsibility towards the Other form a key theoretical foundation for the festival.

Alliance speaks to the power of coexistence through the recognition of difference. The festival brings together diverse, divergent and in-between voices in photography, creating space to explore 'the familiar and the unfamiliar' in cultural production, particularly in relation to rights and representation.

Infinity reflects the boundless possibilities of being human and the limitless capacity for acts of kindness. It gestures towards the multiple realities we inhabit and evokes a longing for a new visual paradigm – one that enables silenced voices to become integral to our shared, interconnected existence, where restrictive borders dissolve and liberating futures can be imagined.

Love, as theorised by author bell hooks, is not understood as a romantic feeling, but as a deliberate and politically effective act – an active force that moves against fear and alienation. Within this curatorial vision, love becomes a motor for change in photography: a departure from visual practices rooted in systems of oppression, towards photography as an act of community and cultural reparation.

This text offers an evolving ethical framework – one that grows alongside the 9th Triennial of Photography Hamburg 2026 and is grounded in its central theme: Alliance, Infinity, Love – in the Face of the Other.

We consider the 9th Triennial an inclusive space for dialogue. These guiding concepts set out the principles within which we aspire to work. Inspired by the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, the curatorial vision of Mark Sealy, the liberatory teachings of Frantz Fanon, bell hooks and Mahatma Gandhi, and the tender wisdom of the song 'Nature Boy', these considerations offer a path: to see and to witness, to learn and unlearn – to be transformed.

This is not a fixed policy, but a living compass – a tool to work with. It offers a dynamic framework for orientation, which may grow and evolve over time. It guides how we encounter images that may confront, disturb or move us. It invites us to meet each work – and each other – with responsibility, humility and love.

'The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.'
– Lyrics of 'Nature Boy' by eden ahbez and performed by Nat King Cole

Echoing the curatorial concept, we begin this ethical journey with the song 'Nature Boy'. Its message of love and humanity invites us to imagine tenderness as a radical gesture.

We embrace slowness and reverence. Stillness and presence are as essential to us as critical engagement. Our aim is to create a space of gentleness, shaped by the arts, memory and the power of creativity to move and remind us of our humanity and responsibilities.

'The infinite is not contained but always calls us beyond.'
– Emmanuel Levinas

'We demand the right to opacity for everyone.'
– Édouard Glissant

'Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.'
– Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 6

Central to our reflections is the understanding that no image, no text, no exhibition can contain the fullness of a person or a people. We honour what is unrepresentable: the sacred, the unseen, the unknowable. We admit that, sometimes, the most ethical act is to remain silent, to leave space, to not know.

This ethical restraint is deeply linked to what Édouard Glissant named the 'right to opacity'. It calls for an acceptance: that not everything must be fully seen, translated or explained. Some knowledge is not ours to own. Some meanings will remain outside our grasp, and this is fair. The exhibition space does not exist to render everything knowable or consumable.

We hold space against the colonial demand for transparency, where cultures are flattened for ease of understanding, comfort or classification. We curate with respect for difference, for that which resists our framing. We value the unspoken, the coded or uncodable, the concealed and the culturally specific. Witnessing, in this sense, asks for a gentler relation: to behold without invading, to engage without extracting.

Together, these principles inform how we understand representation: as responsibility and a true commitment to care.

'Every empire tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires.'
– Edward W. Said

Cultural representation is never neutral. It is shaped by histories of power, by the question of who is speaking – and for whom. We critically examine these frameworks, refusing depictions that serve imperial nostalgia, romanticise difference or frame the Other as static or knowable. In response, we embrace forms of exchange that are collaborative, reciprocal and consent-based.

The right to self-representation – especially for those who have been colonised, displaced or rendered invisible – is essential to any ethical engagement with culture.

'The face speaks to me and thereby invites me to a relation.'
– Emmanuel Levinas

'We must disrupt the visual logic of empire.'
– Mark Sealy

Every encounter with art is also an encounter with others – with their stories, their histories, their pain, their joy. Such moments are never neutral. Images carry power and memory. They shape how we see the world.

To engage with them is not merely to view, but to relate – with accountability and attentiveness to the histories they carry and frameworks they reinforce.

This means resisting control, mastery or presumption and recognising the unknowability that exists between the Self and Other. It means challenging visual systems shaped by dominant hegemonic systems of power that include colonialism and racial violence, and centring those historically erased or misrepresented.

For us, this means that responding with care is not to own or resolve, but to remain open.

'Perhaps we haven’t sufficiently demonstrated that colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native’s brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it.'
— Frantz Fanon

Art can be a site of healing, a space to tend to the psychic wounds of colonialism and systemic violence. The exhibition space must never aestheticise suffering – it must amplify resistance, healing and renewal. Liberation is not only political, but also psychic and spiritual.

'The means may be likened to a seed, the end to a tree.'
– Mahatma Gandhi

'Love is as love does. Love is an act of will—namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.'
– bell hooks

Art can be a site of healing, a space to tend to the psychic wounds of colonialism and systemic violence. The exhibition space must never aestheticise suffering – it must amplify resistance, healing and renewal. Liberation is not only political, but also psychic and spiritual.

We do not accept racist or anti-Semitic attribution, or any form of discrimination based on ethnic origin, nationality, religion or belief, disability, chronic illness, age, language, sex, gender identity or sexuality, or social status.

Black Consciousness

'Being black is not a matter of pigmentation – it is a reflection of a mental attitude.‘
– Steve Biko

We support the right of self-representation and reject the commodification of pain and struggle.

Gender Freedom and Self-Determination

We believe in the right of every person to express and live their gender identity fully and without fear. Trans, non-binary, queer and gender-expansive narratives are not marginal – they are necessary to any space that seeks to be ethical.

Ability, Disability and Accessibility

Disability for us is a vital aspect of human diversity, not a deficit. By uplifting the creativity, wisdom and resistance of disabled communities, we welcome difference.

Children, Young People, and Vulnerable Adults

We recognise the shared responsibility to protect the wellbeing of all individuals who may come into contact with our work. We act in accordance with the German Child Protection Act, the German Youth Protection Act, as well as the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. Care, accountability, and respect for each person’s integrity guide our actions.

These reflections are not just theoretical. Ethics is not abstract: it is embodied, relational, lived. The following are invitations to attentiveness, humility and care in the act of encountering:

• Be Open to Discomfort
  Let difficult work challenge your certainties. Let it interrupt your assumptions.
• Recognise Your Position
  You do not come neutral. Be conscious of what you carry, and how it shapes what you see and how you are seen.
• Sit with Uncertainty
  Resist the urge to explain or fix what is unfamiliar. Let difference remain.
• Listen Generously
  Listen attentively. Not to criticise, but to understand. To hold space. To honour the unknown.
• Respect Contexts
  Every work has a history. Every image, a lineage. Learn from them.
• Engage with Generosity and Care
  Images of suffering are not spectacles. Approach the unknown with dignity and restraint.
• Let the Encounter Continue
  What happens here does not end here. Carry the questions with you.

As this code is not static, but a rhythm of reflection, we ask ourselves, continually:

• 'Whose story is this and who controls its telling?'
• 'Does this work heal or does it extract?'
• 'Is this space a place of control or of care?'
• 'Is there love in how we show, speak and share?'
• 'Have I made space to embrace the infinite?'

We believe the 9th Triennial of Photography Hamburg 2026 does not just offer a space of display, but a space of transformation.

Not just a space for art, but for Alliance, Infinity, Love – in the Face of the Other.