VISUAL ARTS AT KENDAL

Come and enjoy the visual arts exhibitions at Kendal Mountain Festival, where we work to platform a incredible range of local and national artists. It's a privilege to showcase their incredible work — discover each artist’s contribution to the ‘Outdoor’ genre and their personal celebration of landscape, nature and place.

Kendal Mountain Festival Photography Competition 2025

For over four decades, Kendal Mountain Festival has championed stories of adventure, resilience, and inspiration through our International Film Competition. Prior to 2020, we also proudly hosted a photography competition - and in 2025, we are delighted to announce its return.

The Kendal Mountain Festival Photography Competition 2025 aims to showcase exceptional images from around the world, celebrating the unique power of a single photograph to inspire, challenge, and spark reflection. We invite photographers to submit work that captures the spirit of adventure and the beauty of the natural world, through images that tell compelling visual stories.

Submissions may reflect a wide range of themes - from high-adrenaline action and striking natural landscapes, to quieter moments and creative interpretations of our relationship with the outdoors. The competition is open to both amateur and professional photographers, with all entries expected to meet a professional standard of quality.

Entries will be judged by a panel comprising members of the Kendal Mountain Festival team and representatives from the competition’s brand sponsors.

A dedicated, high-profile exhibition space at Kendal Mountain Festival 2025 will showcase the winning and highly commended photographs from each category, offering a platform to celebrate outstanding visual storytelling.

Categories & Prizes

Photographers are invited to submit entries in the following categories:

  • Best Outdoor Landscape - presented by SportsShoes
  • Best Action – presented by SportsShoes
  • Power of Calm – presented by GoodRays

Category winners will receive prizes provided by our partners, and their work will be featured at Kendal Mountain Festival 2025.From the two categories, an overall grand prize winner will be awarded, presented by SportsShoes.The awards will be announced before the Festival, and we will contact winners by email.

Entry Details

  • Entry Fee: $7 per person (the platform we use for submissions is American, with payments being processed in dollars)
  • Submission Deadline: September 1st.

Please note: Entries must be your own original work. You retain the rights to your images, but by entering, you grant Kendal Mountain Festival the right to use your submitted photos for promotional and exhibition purposes, with credit.

Image © James Appleton 2017 Photography Competition Winner

Submission Guidelines

  • Please write in the Cover Letter section on Film Freeway which category, Best Action or Power of Calm, which you think your photograph fits into.
  • Images should be submitted in high-resolution JPEG format.
  • All submissions must be accompanied by a brief description outlining the creative approach, included in the cover letter. Entries submitted to the Best Creative category should place particular emphasis on this aspect.
  • Please note that images generated using artificial intelligence (AI) will not be accepted.
  • Please note that there is no Youth Category this year, but please add your age into the cover letter if you are comfortable doing so.

How to enter

Submit your entries via our FilmFreeway page here.Please note: Entries must put the category they are submitting to in the title of their image.

Terms & Conditions can also be found on our Film Freeway submissions page. 

Image © George Karbus 2018 'For the love of water' category winner

Submit my photograph

Thank you to our photography competition partners

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Digital Arts Competition - SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN

Entry Guidelines

Kendal Mountain Festival is delighted to invite submissions for its Digital Arts Programme — a dedicated strand that celebrates digital, experimental, and film-based art rooted in the themes of the outdoors, nature, environment, and adventure.

We are particularly interested in works that reflect movement within the landscape, nature-based performance (such as poetry or dance in outdoor settings), visual captures of environmental change, or abstract expressions of human connection to nature and wild places.

We welcome work from both emerging and established artists who push the boundaries of form and storytelling through digital media, and whose practice aligns with the ethos of Kendal Mountain Festival.

Programme Overview

The Digital Arts Programme will take place at the Brewery Arts during the Festival and will be presented as a continuous, on-site installation. Selected works will be displayed on digital screens located in the lobby spaces both upstairs and downstairs at the venue.All artworks will be played on a loop throughout the festival weekend, providing ongoing access for audiences.

Headphones will be available for audience members, offering a high-quality and accessible viewing experience.

The exhibition will be free to attend, encouraging spontaneous and inclusive engagement from all festival visitors.

Each selected work will be highlighted in a dedicated section of the printed and online festival programme, including artist and project information.

Submission and Competition Structure

Submissions are open to artists and filmmakers working across digital, experimental, or non-traditional visual formats.

Works may include but are not limited to: video art, digital animation, abstract narrative pieces, and experimental films.

All works must be suitable for exhibition in a looped digital format, with a maximum running time of 10 minutes per piece.

Submitted works will be curated by the Festival programming team.

The Digital Arts Programme operates as a standalone strand and is not part of the Kendal Mountain Festival International Film Competition.

Please note that works generated by or created through AI tools will not be eligible for submission to the competition.

This new initiative offers an innovative space for digital artists to share their work in a high-profile festival environment. We look forward to receiving submissions that push boundaries and explore landscapes and our relationships with the outdoors in diverse ways that reflect the ways we interact with the world we live in.

Submit here

Discover the 2025 exhibitions

A Thousand Words

Three adventurers set out to find a needle in the haystack of the Himalayas, guided by a 125-year old photograph... what could go wrong? From the dusty archives of the Alpine Club to northern Italy and the darkroom of iconic Italian photographer Vittorio Sella – from the bustling streets of Kathmandu to the flanks of Kangchenjunga – this exhibition draws on images old and new in a celebration of mountain photography.

This is a free exhibition that will run from Wednesday November 5th to Sunday November 30th 2025

Location: The Sugar Store Gallery, Brewery Arts Centre, 122A Highgate, Kendal LA9 4HE.

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