Exhibitions
World Press Photo 2026 returns to Barcelona with images that challenge the world
The CCCB hosts 144 photographs that document the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, the climate crisis, social mobilizations and stories of human resistance. The exhibition can be visited from November 6 to December 13.
Barcelona enters the final stretch of the year with a new season of exhibition openings and, as is tradition, the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) becomes the stage for the best international photojournalism with the arrival of World Press Photo 2026. An event that, beyond bringing together some of the most relevant images of the year, seeks to vindicate photography as an instrument of memory, testimony and critical reflection on the present.
Organized by the Photographic Social Vision Foundation for the twenty-second consecutive year, with the co-production of the CCCB and the main collaboration of the Banco Sabadell Foundation, the exhibition presents the winning works of this year's edition of the international competition. In total, 144 photographs, mostly captured during 2025, build a visual story about the tensions, transformations and contradictions that contemporary society is going through.
Tadeo Bourbon for Mu Magazine.
The images place the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine and the human consequences of war at the center of attention, but also open the focus to other realities that are often diluted among the big news headlines. The environmental crisis, citizen protests, health challenges and stories of resilience shape a journey that understands documentary photography not only as a way of recording events, but also as a way of interpreting them and giving them a human dimension.
In this sense, the strength of the exhibition lies in the capacity of each photograph to concentrate a story, a context and an emotion in a single image. The composition, the light, the framing and the relationship between the characters and the environment become essential elements of a visual language that oscillates between the forcefulness of the document and the complexity of artistic creation. They are images that inform, but that also question our way of looking and force us to stop before realities that are not always close to us.
Tyrone Siu/Reuters.
The Barcelona edition will also feature the presence of several award-winning photographers, who will present their projects within the framework of the exhibition. Among them are the Spaniards Brais Lorenzo and Diego Ibarra Sánchez, the Argentine Pablo E. Piovano and the Swedish-Iranian photographer Sanna Sjöswärd, four authors who, from different perspectives and languages, contribute to broadening our view of the realities that define our time.
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