The year 2025 marked a defining chapter for PhotoIreland with the launch of a new landmark cultural space in Dublin, the International Centre for the Image, representing an ambitious new phase for the organisation in how we cultivate, support, and showcase contemporary visual arts practices.
The International Centre for the Image is a result of an unprecedented partnership between PhotoIreland and Kennedy Wilson developed over three years behind the scenes. The new cultural space consolidates the wide scope of PhotoIreland’s projects under one roof while opening possibilities for new initiatives, both public facing and private, and providing the capacity for new opportunities to support artists and art professionals–such as through the Artist Studios or the Library Fellowships.
You can already read online about the Programme 2026 at the International Centre for the Image, but this post is dedicated to highlighting some of the projects we completed in 2025, as part of PhotoIreland’s 360 degrees support framework, focused on artists, the artform and audiences. These have ranged from supporting artists with developmental programmes to publicly celebrating their work in events and exhibitions in Ireland and abroad. Let’s remember some of them here.
International Centre for the Image
The International Centre for the Image is a groundbreaking cultural institution in Dublin Docklands, launched by PhotoIreland in July 2025 with support from Kennedy Wilson, and programmatic support by the Arts Council of Ireland. It redefines the role of image-making in contemporary society—both still and moving—and connects Ireland’s visual arts scene with global artistic discourse.
The exciting first exhibition at the centre, Foreword, highlighted works from 17 artists representing a broad set of art practices around photography and teased out the curatorial issues to which the centre is dedicated. This inaugural show included both moving and still-image artists: Abigail O’Brien, Alan Butler, Alex Prager, Ana Zibelnik and Jakob Ganslmeier, Anna Ehrenstein, Anna Safiatou Touré, Basil Al-Rawi, Bassam Issa Al-Sabah and Jennifer Mehigan, Colin Martin, David Farrell, Dominic Hawgood, Eamonn Doyle, Jean Curran, Mishka Henner, and Penelope Umbrico. Celebrating the launch of PhotoIreland’s new cultural space, we held a two-day event Rethinking the Image devised to explore, through a series of conversations, the value and place of the image in contemporary art practices and for society.
We ended the year’s exhibition programme with two Irish premieres: Solastalgia by acclaimed Irish artist David Farrell and Journey to the Center by internationally renowned photographer Cristina De Middel.
The Centre hosted a number of events, including a very successful and busy Open House, offering a series of free tours and hosting a talk from the Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea series with celebrated Belgian architect An Fonteyne. We celebrated Culture Night, hosted talks, and launched issues 4 and 5 of OVER Journal. We hosted a large number of students from all over Ireland, from a variety of photography, visual arts, and design degrees, as well as other tour groups, such as the RHA School and our neighbours and communities.
Professional Development Programmes and Artist Studios
The new space provides new opportunities to support artists, such as with the new Artist Studios and the Workshop space, as well as enhancing current projects and support programmes, such as our graduate programme RADAR.
The year 2025 welcomed four inaugural artists to the studios: Eamonn Doyle, Emma O’Brien, Evanna Devine, and Vera Ryklova, representing a variety of career stages and practices, as well as different focuses for the residency period. To help the selected artists benefit from the opportunity, PhotoIreland provides a materials bursary, among other curatorial supports. We look forward to welcoming the 2026 artists Aoife Herrity, István László, Róisín White, and Vera Ryklova, now for a full year.
In 2026, we will welcome the new year’s RADAR artists Charlie Dineen, Dónal Talbot, Elia de Leon, Emily Roche, and Rosie Feeney, who will enjoy the expanded opportunity provided by this graduate programme now hosted in this new venue, as we bring our previous cycle to a close. The artists will be able to now additionally avail of two workspaces in the Centre: the Library and the Workshop, which is being expanded this year to provide art printing services.
The Library and the PhotoIreland Collection
The Library at the International Centre for the Image, previously housed at our other venue, The Library Project, provides a highly specialised educational space that brings together a large selection of resource books, as well as access to over 4,000 artists’ publications from the PhotoIreland Collection, with many rare and one-off copies, making it the most important library focused on Photography in Ireland, complementing the offering of public and university libraries. It is open to the public, as well as artists and researchers.
The new location for the PhotoIreland Collection will play an instrumental role in the organisation’s aims to secure long-term sustainability, including accreditation through the Heritage Council’s Museum Standards Programme.
To mark this development, PhotoIreland has launched two initiatives to mediate the collection: Building the Museum from the Library and Library Fellowships.
Framed under the title Building the Museum from the Library: The book as an art object within Art collections, PhotoIreland has commissioned a series of essays by distinguished international contributors. Contributions by Markus Schaden and Russet Lederman can be read in the TEXTS section of the Centre’s website, with new contributions from Daniel Boetker Smith, David Campany, Ethel Ruth Tawe, Sergio Valenzuela Escobedo, and Tiago Casanova coming in the new year.
PhotoIreland announced a new fellowship programme, selecting two individuals through an open call to engage with and mediate the PhotoIreland Collection: Clodagh Assata Boyce and Jennifer Mehigan.
In addition, the Library contributes to the Centre’s programme by hosting its own exhibitions and events, such as the Archive of Modern Conflict, presenting an extensive selection of Photobooks from AMC, and The Dummy Award international competition for the best unpublished photobooks of the year.
FUTURES Photography Platform
It was another productive year for FUTURES, its international members, and the hundreds of artists represented. For the first time, PhotoIreland has expanded the opportunity to the annual Talent Call to UK and UK-based artists. An external jury welcoming Mariama Attah, Julia Bunnemann, and Ciara Hickey, has selected five artists to be represented by PhotoIreland in 2025 and continuing to enjoy the benefits of the platform. They are Henri Kisielewski, Nazlı Yıldırım, Shane Hynan, Tudor Rhys Etchells, and Zoe Hamill.
PhotoIreland took on the role of publishing partner this year, producing a special FUTURES issue of OVER Journal. The issue is a collaborative editorial project devised by four member organisations: Fotograf Zone, Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Centre, Centre Photographique Rouen Normandie, and PhotoIreland. It was launched at the Annual Event hosted by Fotograf Zone in Prague, followed by a launch in Dublin at the International Centre for the Image, and finally celebrated during Critical Beans, an event during Paris Photo at the Centre Culturel Irlandais (image above).
For 2026, the jury process in currently ongoing and we will announce the 2026 FUTURES Talents in February.
New Irish Works
2025 also marked the beginning of the new fifth cycle of our triennial talent programme New Irish Works. An open call to all photographers and artists critically engaged in image making, based in Ireland and those Irish artists developing their practice abroad, regardless of age and career stage was overseen by an international jury comprising Ana Casas Broda, Dan Rule and Justine Ellis, Danaé Panchaud, Dawn Williams, Gwen Lee, Jean-Christophe Godet, Katy Hundertmark, Luis Alberto Rodriguez, Michael Hill, and Sohee Kim.
The ten artists selected are Austin Hearne, Billy Kenrick, Ciara Richardson, Debbie Castro, Dorje De Burgh, Emily O’Connell, Garry Loughlin, Kate Nolan, Mandy O’Neill, and Miriam O’Connor.
The Library Project
2025 was also a year of transformation for Ireland’s Art Bookshop, The Library Project, as we relocated the Library into its new home. We have expanded the bookshop space upstairs, now fully open to the public, providing even more space for artists to be represented.
Other highlights of the year included a fantastic party celebrating the 90th birthday of a Dublin legend John Gunn, the launch of the eleventh edition of HALFTONE Print Fair that ran for its longest edition this year, as well as some off-site work collaborating with Beta Festival and the Irish Architectural Foundation with the return of IAF House at Charlemont Square.
TLP Editions: 12 new publications in 2025
PhotoIreland continued the publishing support through the TLP Editions series, representing 94 publications in the series to date, featuring:
- Every Glove, Evanna Devine
- Peripheral Beliefs I, John Foley
- Peripheral Beliefs II, John Foley
- Sionnachuighim (I Play the Fox), James Kelly
- Lá an Dreoílín, Clodagh O’Leary
- left me with the fears of a bird, Aoife Herrity
- The Fair Green, John Foley
- Baghdad Dawn, Kate Nolan
- Photographs from the Ring Road, Neil J. Smyth
- Dún Laoghaire Baths, Ste Murray
- River Hymn, Simon Bates
- Dead Zoo in Blue, Ishmael Claxton
The selection of artists is done through an open call every year, and the scope of projects accepted is quite wide. The TLP Editions series was designed to represent the full spectrum of practices engaged in image making in Ireland. While the TLP Editions series was a project born to fill in gaps between busy production periods of our team, the project grew substantially and has been very well received, quickly becoming a substantial publishing element of our projects. You can get your copies in The Library Project.
There are three more TLP EDitions coming soon, by Debbie Castro, Ryan Allen, and Michael Croghan, and the call for 2026 will open in early January to bring the project to a total of well 100 publications.
OVER Journal
2025 was a bumper year for OVER Journal releasing two new issues of the annual publication.
OVER Journal launched its first issue in 2020 and has enjoyed a growing interest reaching rapidly all corners of the global market, from Zurich to Los Angeles. The publication, billed as ‘The Critical Journal of Photography and Visual Culture for the 21st century’ is produced with support from the Arts Council of Ireland.
OVER Journal issue 4 continues to foster critical conversations around contemporary photographic practices. With contributions from artists and writers spanning six continents, the issue explores themes around representation and the evolving role of the image in shaping history and identity, articulating new representations that challenge historical legacies. Cover image by Bassam Issa Al-Sabah.
Contributors to issue 4 are Laila Abdul-Hadi Jadallah, Basil Al-Rawi, Alan Butler, Laura Carbonell, Richard Conway, Simone C. Niquille, Sharbendu De, Tashiya de Mel, Imane Djamil, Liss Fenwick, Jakob Ganslmeier, Souheila Ghorbel, Yasmine Hatimi, Bassam Issa Al-Sabah, Amina Kadous, Marianne Keating, Aidan Kelly Murphy, Ayoung Kim, Seif Kousmate, Laila Lund Altinbas, Morganna Magee, Ruairí McCann, Jennifer Mehigan, Rehan Miskci, Hashim Nasr, Nora O Murchú, Alex Prager, Felipe Romero Beltrán, Zohra Serri, Abdo Shanan, Aaryan Sinha, Inuuteq Storch, Andrea Stultiens, Rebecca Topakian, and Ana Zibelnik.
OVER Journal issue 5 presents a collaborative editorial project devised by four member organisations of FUTURES, the European Photography Platform, around the theme of Metamorphosis, with a cover image by Eamonn Doyle.
Featured contributors to issue 5 are Claudia Amatruda, Lyndon Barrois Jr., Máté Bartha, Benedetta Casagrande, Emanuele Coccia, Cristina de Middel, Eamonn Doyle and Niall Sweeney and David Donohoe, Colin Graham, Marcus Gustafsson, Vitalii Halanzha, Zoe Hamill, Michael Hill, Ksenia Ivanova, Hana Janečková, Aidan Kelly Murphy, Světlana Malina, Emilia Martin, Emese Mucsi, Anna Orlowska, Constantin Schlachter, Ilaria Sponda, Raphaelle Stopin, Balázs Turós, Viktoriia Tymonova, István Virágvölgyi, Erik Vroons, Yana Wernicke, Ada Zielinska, and Joanna Zylinska.
All issues are available at thelibraryproject.ie and at overjournal.org with international shipping!
In Other News…
In addition to our international collaborations through FUTURES, manifested throughout Europe with the Annual Meeting in Arles and the Annual Event in Prague, PhotoIreland joined the launch of EXPOSED Photography Festival in Turin, Italy. We were delighted to see the work of Irish artist Alan Butler featured in the festival’s main exhibition, following the artist’s meeting with the EXPOSED team during a studio visit organised byPhotoIreland for as part of the FUTURES Meet-Up event in Dublin in 2024.
Although we were exceptionally busy at home working towards the opening of the International Centre for the Image, we made time to attend some events to spread the good news: we were invited to attend the portfolio reviews at Les Rencontres d’Arles and Glaz Photography Festival. While in Arles, we were invited to participate in a panel talk ‘Reframing Stories: The Growth of New Feminist Movements‘ organised by Cómo ser Fotógrafa. In Glaz, we participated in The Interceltic Conference, representing Irish photography alongside colleagues from Brittany, Wales, and Scotland.
In Ireland, we shared our latest publications at the Dublin Art Book Fair, hosted by Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, presenting OVER Journal issues 4 and 5, as well as a selection of the newest TLP Editions.
We collaborated with the British Journal of Photography on the Female in Focus photography award, with the winning two series and 20 images to be exhibited in Dublin.
We were delighted to join a number of juries, most notably the prestigious Prix Elysée, Female in Focus, .tiff by Fotomuseum Antwerp, and Mason Hayes and Curran photography exhibition and award in partnership with IADT.
TU Dublin’s BA Photography ‘Archiving in Context’ module
Over the past 7 years, we have collaborated with TU Dublin’s BA Photography programme in hosting an element of their 5-credit internship module called ‘Archiving in Context’. From October to December, third year students engage with the PhotoIreland Collection, contributing to the cataloguing of the new arrivals and the care of the existing materials. To date, it has given the opportunity to students to learn about archiving data in a consistent and critical manner, while having direct access to the latest photobooks as they arrive to the collection. In 2025, we were fortunate to work with another two excellent students Sophia Mangan and Rei Su who had the opportunity to continue the work in the new Library premises at the International Centre for the Image.
