A picture may paint a thousand words. But those photographs that capture social unrest, political angst and the power of people’s movements say a whole lot more. This is the premise of this year’s Diffusion: Cardiff International Festival of Photography 2017, celebrating those artists and photographers whose work hones in on the theme of ‘Revolution’.

From John Hoppy Hopkins’ historic documentation of the emergence of counterculture in the UK; to political artist Peter Kennard and long-time collaborator Cat Phillipps’ addressing of issues relating to Trump, Brexit, the refugee and migrant crisis; to French photographer Manuel Bougot’s explorations of Le Corbusier’s architectural impact on post-independent India; these creatives capture something key to our understanding of the world. Whether documenting the electric energy of protest, or quieter moments reflective of great social change, their output frames the zeitgeist.

Here Diffusion festival director David Drake selects his highlights from this year’s line-up. Whether you’re in Cardiff or not, here’s an opportunity to get acquainted with an important set of artists and works – and maybe even learn something new.

Marcelo Brodsky: 1968 – The Fire of Ideas

“Marcelo Brodsky is an Argentine artist and human rights activist, working with images and documents of specific events to investigate broader social, political and historical issues,” says Drake. “In 1968 – the Fire of Ideas Brodsky features archival images of student and worker demonstrations around the world, carefully annotated by hand in order to deconstruct what lay behind worldwide social turbulence in the late 1960s.”

John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins: Taking Liberties

“Between 1960 and 1966 John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins captured the vibrancy of discontent and the emerging counter-culture in Britain, which was expressed through activism, poetic expression and art. The Taking Liberties exhibition for Diffusion brings together a selection of images never seen before from the photographers archive alongside others included in the very few public exhibitions of his work to date. This includes the Beat Poets, William Burroughs, Malcolm X, The Beatles and those involved in the pioneering underground newspaper International Times.”

Diane Meyer: Berlin

“American artist Diane Meyer combines medium format film images with intricate hand sewn embroidery. In the Berlin series she has reimagined the entire 104 circumference of the Berlin Wall, the symbolic divide between the communist East and capitalist West during the Cold War. By having the embroidery take the form of digital pixels, she makes a connection between the porous nature of memory and digital file corruption, suggesting that photography transforms history into nostalgic objects that obscure objective understanding of the past.”

Paolo Ciregia – Perestrojka

“Paolo Ciregia is an Italian photographer whose project Perestrojka focuses on the Kiev uprising in Ukraine. With the reportage photographs from his private archives, shot over four years to document the Ukrainian war – from the riots in Maidan Square to the parting of the Crimea, and to the war in Donbass – he reconstructs such events with overlaps, cuts and corrosions. The aim is to create a different iconographic repertoire, to revise and to change the way to tell the war, without erasing the historical and cultural roots of such events.”

Manuel Bougot: Chandigarh

“The Modernist movement in architecture and urban design became and continues to be a global phenomenon. Chandigarh was one of the early planned cities in the post-independence India with the whole design and construction of the city being true to Le Corbusier’s radical modernist vision. In Chandigarh French photographer Manuel Bougot forensically explores through photography how Le Corbusier’s philosophy and approach was realised in this unique city which has come to represent Modern India.”

Amak Mahmoodian: Shenasnameh

“Iranian artist Amak Mahmoodian’s project Shenasnameh offers new insights into Persian women’s identity against a backdrop of state censorship and control. Subtle differences in appearance are discernible in these found passport photographs, but in some images eyes and foreheads are obscured by the authorities due to the subject wearing too much mascara or revealing too much of the face.”

Vanley Burke – No Time for Flowers

“Jamaican born Vanley Burke played a key role in documenting protest in 1970s and 80s Birmingham, including Anti-Nazi League demonstrations and the Handsworth uprising. He also photographed life in South Africa in the 1990s, as the Apartheid system crumbled, including the Sharpeville demonstration and Nelson Mandela’s birthday party. We’re delighted to present a selection from both bodies of work in a special exhibition at Diffusion.”

kennardphillips – State of the Nation

“My final highlight is State of the Nations, a special commission for Diffusion by Peter Kennard, without doubt Britain’s most important political artist, and Cat Phillipps, with whom he has been collaborating with since 2003. In State of the Nations, resistance to the status quo is embedded in their deconstruction of news images and narratives built from everyday materials, photomontage and text. kennardphillipps dig into the surface of words and images, remixing earlier work and creating new artwork addressing contemporary issues relating to Trump, Brexit, the refugee and migrant crisis and nuclear proliferation.”

Diffusion Festival runs until the 31st May. For more info head to the website.