The third iteration of Nepal’s premier photography festival is just around the corner. To kick off this October, the festival will include the same programmes as its last edition alongside two new programmes—art commission and an incubation programme that will feature young photographers and related practitioners.

The fest has commissioned the multimedia project Island of our Bodies put together by artists Kreepa Maskey, Irina Giri and Sonam Choekyi Lama. The project explores the implication of dealing with the body through abstraction, fantasy and the reality of the physical body, organisers have stated.

Likewise, a month-long mixed-media residency with Indian curator and art writer Veerangana Kumari Solanki and Nepali artist/curator Sujan Chitrakar will see artists work together in Patan for the month. The selected artists include Nhooja Tuladhar and Bandana Tulachan (Nepal), Marco Panzetti (Italy), Fiza Khatri (Pakistan), and Valentina Abenavoli and Ilgin Denix Akseloglu (Italy, Turkey), who will explore the interrelations between photography, sound, video, writing, performance, and other mediums.

The fest will also shed light on the issues of gender, power, identity, patriarchy and sexuality with extra focus, organisers said. “Photo Kathmandu is sensitive to the subtle and not so subtle ways in which the intersection of these structures affect not only the world we inhabit but also the ways in which we engage with it, and will encourage engagement and conversations around these very present themes,” reads a note issued by the organisers, Photo Circle.

Moreover, the fest will also exhibit works ranging in themes and media such as multi-channel video installtions The Lightning Testimonies by Amar Kanwar (India), The Public Life of Women, co-curated by Diwas Raja KC and NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati (Nepal), and There Are No Homosexuals in Iran by Laurence Rasti (Switzerland), among many others.

The festival will take place from October 12 to November 16.