For the full month of July 2022, visitors will be able to enjoy a unique programme showcasing the History of Photography in Ireland. From the early days, where Ireland played an important role in its technological development, to the diverse and socially engaged set of contemporary art practices that define it today, this is the biggest and most comprehensive survey exhibition to date on the subject. All presented right in the city centre, at The Printworks, Dublin Castle.

Continuing with its public-facing research project started in 2019, PhotoIreland presents the second instalment of the Museum of Contemporary Photography of Ireland, with an ambitious and comprehensive survey exhibition that defines what Photography represents today for Ireland, while contextualising its historical background. The presentation, part of the PhotoIreland Festival 2022, is accompanied by an extensive educational programme that provides artist led workshops, conferences, talks, and curatorial tours, amongst others, as much as a series of publications that will serve as a substantial and definite resource for the discipline. Complementing the offer, an extensive reading room provides the largest presentation of Irish photobooks to date, drawn from the PhotoIreland Collection, as much as public and private collections.

Spread across a generous 2000m², visitors can now access a set of exhibitions and video installations introducing many works, some well-known and many never seen before, while trailing along a history that sees the transformation of a technology into a fully matured artistic practice.

The project is the result of ongoing research by Ángel Luis González Fernández, Director of PhotoIreland, who received support of the Arts Council of Ireland Visual Arts Bursary towards its development. The aim is to provide a conclusive and detailed analysis of the practice in Ireland, covering both its historical and specific cultural context, consulting and collaborating with key individuals, organisations, archives, and generate appropriate access to the research. It will underline the existing diversity of public and private collectors and collections holding valuable artworks, and evidence a broad and diverse array of artistic and curatorial practices. 

Get Involved:
Calling artists, cultural professionals and organisations, writers and critics, Art and Photo Historians, collectors and archivists, and the general public.

As part of this public-facing research project, PhotoIreland is proposing various ways in which everyone, artists, public and private organisations, curators, historians, collectors, archivists, and all art professionals, as much as the general public, can participate.

In this first research phase, we are collecting information from all possible sources, deepening our ongoing exploration, and asking everyone to kindly contribute to the process. At the same time, we are opening a conversation with cultural professionals and organisations, in Ireland and abroad, to identify co-programming, touring, and loaning opportunities.