Xposure 2026 Launches Legacy Awards Across Three Categories For Visual Storytelling

The Xposure International Photography Festival 2026 has introduced the Xposure Legacy Awards as a new feature of its tenth edition, organised by the Sharjah Government Media Bureau. The initiative honours exhibitions whose visual storytelling leaves a lasting cultural and intellectual mark and underlines Xposure’s role as a platform for knowledge exchange, dialogue, and long-term creative influence.

The awards focus on exhibitions rather than single images, and combine public engagement with expert judgement. This mixed evaluation model aims to enhance cultural credibility and highlight works that shape discussion beyond the festival. Winners are scheduled to be announced during the closing ceremony of Xposure 2026 on 4 February 2026.

The Xposure Legacy Awards are divided into three main categories that reflect different strengths in visual storytelling. They are the Noor Ali Rashid Legacy Award for Documentary Vision, the Saleh Al Ustad Legacy Award for Creative Photography, and the Beeah Award for Environmental and Conservation Photography. Together, these categories cover humanitarian, artistic, and environmental approaches to photography.

Alya Al Suwaidi, Director of SGMB, said, "Xposure’s vision for the Legacy Awards is rooted in an expanded understanding of cultural legacy, one that does not regard the past as a closed chapter or a static historical accumulation, but as a living impact that extends across time." Al Suwaidi linked this vision to how images remain active in public awareness.

Expanding on this idea, Al Suwaidi added, "True legacy is what remains present in collective awareness, what continues to educate, interpret, and raise questions, and what equips successive generations with new tools to understand the world through imagery. From this perspective, when visual storytelling is presented with responsibility and knowledge, it becomes a universal human language capable of building collective memory, deepening human understanding, and reinforcing the role of imagery as a sustainable cultural and intellectual force." These remarks set the intellectual framework for the Xposure Legacy Awards.

The Noor Ali Rashid Legacy Award for Documentary Vision focuses on exhibitions that handle social and humanitarian issues with depth and care. It is named for the late Emirati photographer Noor Ali Rashid, a pioneer of photojournalism in the UAE. The award highlights documentary projects that present truthful visual stories, explore complex human experiences, and help preserve shared visual memory for future generations.

The Saleh Al Ustad Legacy Award for Creative Photography carries the name of one of the UAE’s early art movement leaders and founder of a specialised photography school. This Xposure Legacy Awards category looks at exhibitions that show strong creativity and artistic invention. It values projects that treat photography as a field for experimentation and personal interpretation, and that respond to changing cultural and aesthetic contexts.

Xposure Legacy Awards and environmental focus

The Beeah Award for Environmental and Conservation Photography, sponsored by BEEAH Group, forms the environmental pillar of the Xposure Legacy Awards. It honours exhibitions that increase awareness of ecological issues, reveal both the beauty and vulnerability of natural environments, and encourage responsibility towards sustainability. The award is directed at visual narratives that present nature as a living system needing understanding, care, and thoughtful action.

Through these three Xposure Legacy Awards categories, the festival aims to support both emerging and established professionals, while strengthening professional and cultural standards in visual storytelling. The awards recognise works that shape intellectual and human reflection, and that continue to resonate after the festival has ended, linking artistic practice with long-term public engagement and learning.

Xposure Legacy Awards within the 2026 festival

The Xposure International Photography Festival 2026 carries the theme "A Decade of Visual Storytelling" and runs from 29 January to 4 February 2026. More than 420 photographers, filmmakers, and visual artists from around the world are taking part. The programme features 95 exhibitions showing over 3,200 artworks, along with more than 570 talks, workshops, and cultural events.

Within this broad programme, the Xposure Legacy Awards act as a central pillar that links artistic practice with social, cultural, and environmental awareness. By honouring exhibitions that create lasting visual and intellectual legacies, the awards align with the festival’s ten-year journey and support Sharjah’s wider cultural vision, while offering audiences in the UAE and beyond a deeper engagement with photography.

With inputs from WAM