Auckland Festival of Photography [Whakaahua Hākari] is proud to announce Harvey Norman as its 2025 Festival naming rights sponsor. 

 “We are delighted with this naming rights partnership with Harvey Norman,” says founder and CEO of the Festival, Julia Durkin MNZM. “Not only does it highlight the importance of the private sector in supporting the arts and the many communities that benefit from them, but it is a validation of the importance of photography in the fabric of who we are as a nation. We welcome Harvey Norman to the Festival family and look forward to a sensational 2025 Festival together.” 

“An exciting announcement this year is that Harvey Norman is partnering with the Auckland Festival of Photography,” says Paul Keenihan - General Manager – Computers Mobile & Technology Division, Harvey Norman. “The festival honours and celebrates the artistic community by highlighting New Zealand photographers of all skill levels. This partnership aims to create a new layer of engagement and passion for photography, while also bringing together technology, creativity, and the local community.”

As part of the partnership, Wynyard Quarter’s Silo 6 venue will become "Festival HQ presented by Harvey Norman". Dates and associated exhibitions will be announced on 17 April, as a key element of the 2025 Festival programme - see following pages for advance highlights. Harvey Norman will also expand the Festival awards offered annually for Aotearoa Music Photography Awards (May) and Youth Photo Award for emerging photographers (June) - see following paragraphs. Each award category will have a Harvey Norman prize in addition to the usual cash grants offered.

As part of the Auckland Festival of Photography presented by Harvey Norman, entries for the Aotearoa Music Photography Awards 2025 open in May. Pop up exhibitions featuring 2024’s winners and selected entries can be viewed at Te Oro Music Centre, Glen Innes, Ellen Melville Centre, High Street, Commercial PwC Tower and Te Komititanga Square display, and screened on Freeview TV CH200. Awards include cash grants for the top two judged images and a People’s Choice supported by Harvey Norman prize for the image that gains the most valid public votes. 

Entries open in June for the annual Youth Photo Award, part of the Auckland Festival of Photography presented by Harvey Norman. The Award is for photographers/artists aged under 25 years. Winners will receive cash grants and Harvey Norman prize vouchers.

AFP is proud to announce international and New Zealand projects that are part of 2025’s  ‘Sustain' [tautīnei] suite of exhibitions: Petra Leary – Embrace The Unknown, Ardit Hoxha – Anywhere Out of The World, and Richard Young - Antarctica.

Award winning drone specialist Petra Leary’s (NZ) exhibition Embrace The Unknown of her aerial photography provides a bird's-eye view, providing a scale and vastness difficult to capture from ground level and emphasizing a location’s remoteness and isolation. Aerial photographs can document cultural heritage sites and landscapes, ensuring these valuable resources are preserved for future generations. Part of the Festival Harvey Norman HQ at Silo 6.

ZERO HUNGER reflects Italian photographer Maurizio Di Pietro’s interest in subjects that reveal the fragility and resilience of life, and how environmental issues’ intersect with social concerns. His storytelling is a call to action, advocating sustainable solutions to the growing food crisis exacerbated by climate change, particularly the potential of insects as a protein source. 

LOST FOREST - THE OTHER SIDE OF DECARBONIZATION by Japanese artist, Hiroaki Hasumi,  focuses on modern energy policies that purport to protect the environment but destroy it. “Building mega solar power plants is appreciated as a solution for climate change,”  Hiroaki Hasumi says,  “but on the other hand, it is associated with deforestation and ecosystem destruction".

Ardit Hoxha’s (NZ) series, ANYWHERE OUT OF THE WORLD, documents the sites of leisure and recreation he encountered in Tokyo as a Kōwhai artist-in-resident. Presented exclusively in Auckland, Hoxha’s new work will be shown on lightboxes alongside the retail area of Commercial PwC Tower at Te Komititanga Square. 

AFP’s 2025 public programme includes leading USA publisher, photojournalist and writer Michael Itkoff and leading New Zealand photographer Chris Corson-Scott. Their collaboration has resulted in Daylight Books’ The Afterglow Industry, Chris Corson-Scott’s project drawing on a 10-year study of New Zealand and the impacts of colonisation and industry. Mike’s visit coincides with the New Zealand book launch and is supported by the Gerrard & Marti Friedlander Trust. 

Richard Young’s (NZ) ANTARCTICA series will feature on lightboxes along the Auckland waterfront - an area predicted to be inundated over time as ice shelves melt and sea levels rise. The landscape works will be a reverential totem of the Festival’s Sustain [tautīnei] theme. “This landscape will change, along with the light and elements that combine to create the emotion in the photograph,” says Richard Young, ”as will the evolution of my response as an artist.” 

New York’s Photoville founder and creative director, Sam Barzilay, visits Auckland in late July as a special guest in the lead up to the annual World Press Photo exhibition. During his stay, Sam will be available for media interviews and portfolio reviews. Sam Barzilay has curated photo exhibitions and lectured on photography in more than 20 countries, and served as juror, nominator, and reviewer for numerous international photography awards.

Full Festival programme announced on 17 April 2025.

See https://photographyfestival.org.nz/