Returning May, Flotsam Festival 2026 will again transform the Gold Coast into a living gallery of surf culture and next-gen storytelling. Across a giant two week program Flotsam Festival will hack the photo archive wide open, transforming beaches, rooftops, laneways and headlands into a distributed exhibition of surf photography, film, and coastal stories. Think less “festival precinct,” more augmented coastline: AR-coded memories, large-scale photo drops, open-air cinemas and global premieres embedded directly into the landscape that shaped them.
Staged like a giant arts trail across indoor and outdoor locations, the Flotsam program aims to move seamlessly between local and global, analogue and future-facing, offering experiences for photography, surf, travel and culture lovers alike.
At its core, Flotsam 2026 is a reframing of place. Wish You Were Here (May 1–15, The Sands Hotel) sees iconic surfer, shaper and photographer Richard Harvey remix the Gold Coast’s visual past. Vintage postcards collide with personal archives, tracing how the region was once marketed to the world long before Instagram flattened everything into the same feed. The May 13 Talk Story event dives into how imagery shaped tourism, identity and mythmaking.
Meanwhile, Icons (launch May 6, The Pink Hotel) turns the hotel façade into a raw, black-and-white data wall of memory. Lost landmarks, enduring breaks, local characters with each image a portal to a story layer. It’s part exhibition, part time capsule.
Then there’s Focal Point, the festival’s signature move. Curated by award-winning author Tim Baker, this large-scale outdoor trail repositions legendary surf photographs back into their original vantage points, from Snapper Rocks to Burleigh Headland. Featuring works by Andrew Shield, John Witzig and more, it’s a living timeline of surf culture experienced in situ where geography and history collapse into one frame.
Flotsam pulls the world’s leading surf storytellers into the same orbit for International Masters of Surf. Curated by Ted Grambeau, this rare, annually expanding compendium of the world’ finest lensfolk runs on a premise: one defining image per artist. Featuring icons including Art Brewer, Jeff Divine and Chris Burkard, the show distills decades of risk, innovation and aesthetic evolution into a single room. Nine new photographers will be inducted this year, a changing of the guard moment for global surf photography.
On the film front, the Flotsam International Surf Film Fest (May 10) transforms Kirra into an open-air cinema with serious narrative weight. Highlights include Beyond Borders Patagonia (dir. Jed Fasso) tackling remote Chilean frontiers, untapped waves, expedition energy. Haus Tumbuna (dir. Matty Hannon): a surfboard factory in Papua New Guinea as a tool for cultural revival, and many more stellar films from across the globe.
Environmental storytelling isn’t a side note, it’s embedded across the festival. Flotsam Oceans (May 10, Roughton Park) blends community action with cultural programming: beach cleans with Surfrider Foundation, recycled art workshops, live music and an open-air screening of Sensing Home (dir. Milo Inglis), following surfers Lauren L Hill and Dave Rastovich as they connect with communities protecting marine ecosystems from northern NSW to the Great Barrier Reef.
Surf culture’s authorship is changing and Flotsam is leaning into it. (Surf) Girls On Film (May 7) is a high-energy convergence of female filmmakers, photographers and surfers. Expect short films, large-scale projections and conversations that cut through industry noise to examine representation, authorship and what comes next from Lilliana Bowrey, Beatriz Ryder, Pacha Light, Shannon Hayes, Katey Shearer and more. Running alongside, In Her Frame (May 6–15, Love Street Store) showcases photographers Emy Dossett, Fiona Pyke and Shell Bankier, with moving image work from filmmaker Clementine Bourke layered into the launch night. The perspective shift is subtle but decisive, seen from within rather than observed from the margins.
Media + Makers (May 3), led by Tim Baker, pulls back the curtain on creative practice in 2026. Panels tackle everything from independent publishing and freelancing to AI’s impact on visual culture and the economics of storytelling. Sessions like Future of Media and Freelancer’s Guide to the Galaxy position Flotsam serve as a think tank for where surf and creative industries are heading.
In a hyper-digital world, Flotsam doubles down on tactility. Flotsam Canisters is a global analogue photography exhibition celebrating grain, imperfection and process. The twist: its closing night becomes an art lottery. Buy a film canister, crack it open, take home a mystery print. Direct artist support, gamified.
The festival will also host youth and emerging artists across the festival with dedicated Flotsam Next Wave programming, which culminates at Flotsam Homegrown (May 15, John Laws Park) a free, open-air convergence of emerging talent. Surf film finalists, photography awards, live music, sunset over Burleigh. Less awards night, more cultural release valve, Homegrown is a love letter to the coast home blasted onto the big screen.
Don't miss Flotsam Festival 2026, with programming actively reshaping how surf film and photography is seen, shared and experienced.