As part of its continuing growth, PhotoIreland is excited to announce that a number of significant changes are coming in 2024. The staff and Board of Directors are eager to share an update to keep everyone informed about the momentous developments happening behind the scenes.
To facilitate the important milestones we are undergoing, some of our programming will be temporarily paused. For the first time since its inception in 2010, the PhotoIreland Festival will not be held this year.
The current changes aim to cement the legacy of this dynamic organisation while providing the adequate structures to implement the company’s goals. The process acknowledges and reflects on the substantial cultural projects the organisation has already carried out with its characteristic never ending ambition over its first 15 years of existence, with many firsts in Ireland clocked along the way. These include, Ireland’s international Photography festival, Ireland’s Art bookshop, and Ireland’s critical journal of Photography and visual culture, to which we can add many successful projects such as customised professional development supports for the sector, residencies, publication opportunities, and a unique and specialised photobook library.
PhotoIreland has been representing Ireland in the international arena since its inception in 2010, growing a special focus on the European continent thanks to its participation in multimillion Creative Europe co-funded projects – being the only Irish member representing our constituency for almost a decade. Without any doubt, PhotoIreland has energised the landscape of Photography in Ireland and the effects in the sector have spread well beyond the discipline we represent, which is remarkable for an organisation so small and with limited funding.
All these, and many other projects and achievements, have been made possible because the organisation clearly understands its role in the Arts; placing the needs of its sector at the core of its operations and is as critical with itself as it is with others. PhotoIreland is, after all, an organisation founded and run by artists, born to support artists, and that considers artists first in the conception and development of its projects.
Through the radical space that the Critical Academy granted us since October 2017, PhotoIreland has been carrying out ongoing research of the sector, gathering and evaluating historical data. This in turn sparked projects such as the PhotoIreland Wiki, OVER Journal and more recently Images Are All We Have, the largest and broadest survey of arts practice in relation to Photography in Ireland to date. This particular research project traced the thematic development of the photographic discipline and contextualised the historical background, bringing together the diverse and socially engaged set of art practices that define contemporary Irish photography today.
The Museum of Contemporary Photography of Ireland (MOCPOI), perhaps the most important and ambitious of our public-facing research projects and also born out of the Critical Academy, started in 2019 an open conversation aiming to inform and create the ideal prototype space to actively engage with visual culture and critical thinking today. Instead of replicating the traditional museum models and structures that had begun to be deconstructed in the last decades, PhotoIreland proposed this public investigation to creatively define a unique model that truly engages with the complexities of the 21st century, as much as to those related to the discipline.
Throughout the MOCPOI five year project, we gathered many interesting questions and ideas from local and international visitors and many visiting colleagues, hosting critical conversations that ultimately inform our position today in the strategic development of our organisation.
These and other very exciting changes that are planned for this year have an effect on our cultural programming, as we focus our energies towards their success. We know that our stakeholders understand the excitement of these changes and will continue to support our work, and want to thank you for your patronage which is so important for us.
Access to the PhotoIreland Collection during the coming months will continue but with some restrictions, so we recommend getting in touch well ahead of time if you would like to visit.
Meanwhile, we will continue supporting artists through The Library Project, RADAR, the TLP EDITIONS, and chiefly through FUTURES Photography platform. Stay informed by subscribing to our newsletter and social media channels.
If you are interested in becoming part of PhotoIreland’s Board of Directors and contribute with your knowledge and experience to its development, read the call for expressions of interest, currently open.
Image: visitors enjoying the PhotoIreland Festival 2023 R/evolutions main shows at The Printworks Dublin Castle.
