Ireland’s International Festival of Photography & Image Culture.
@PhotoIrelandFST /PhotoIrelandFST @PhotoIrelandFST
Started: 1 July 2010.
What: PhotoIreland Festival: vibrant, friendly, all-inclusive: a festival for all to enjoy.
When: Every year, for the month of July.
Where: Various locations around Dublin, Ireland.
Why: Celebrates Ireland’s photographic talents – oftentimes only recognised abroad – as well as bringing international practitioners and artists to Ireland. The festival highlights, promotes and elevates Photography in Ireland – conferring on it the importance it duly deserves.
Critically reinventing its format every year, PhotoIreland Festival continues to be the ideal testing ground for artists and curators where to create new Photographic work, and for Irish audiences to gain a broader understanding of the discipline.
The festival has a deep interest in supporting emerging artists, and does so successfully with ambitious exhibitions, creatively developing a well-defined artistic vision within the limitations of small budgets, always collaborating with international guest curators.
Conceived in 2008, and celebrating its first edition in 2010, PhotoIreland Festival is Ireland’s international festival of Photography and Image Culture. It celebrates Ireland’s photographic talents, presents international practitioners and artists in Ireland, creates new avenues for cultural exchange and cooperation, and promotes a critical engagement with Photography in Ireland.
A project of PhotoIreland, the festival receives support from the Arts Council of Ireland, Dublin City Council and other local and international organisations to run the PhotoIreland Festival every year.
The festival works with a growing international network of partners to multiply the impact of its programme. Co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme, projects like Flaneur – New Urban Narratives, Futures Photography, Parallel Platform, have presented rich opportunities for exchange and promoted local artists internationally.
PhotoIreland Festival has evolved over time thanks to its openness, honesty, and critical vision, developing new structures that have become essential elements of the PhotoIreland portfolio, such as the Critical Academy, New Irish Works, The Library Project, and more recently, the Museum of Contemporary Photography of Ireland.
Make sure you subscribe to our newsletter to stay informed, and learn more about the previous editions on our archive page.
Festival Editions
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PhotoIreland Festival 2023
Vibrant, friendly, all-inclusive: a festival for all to enjoy, this year’s edition brings to Ireland contemporary photography by celebrated artists from diverse cultural backgrounds through a series of guest-curated exhibitions by internationally established curators—including newly commissioned and rarely seen works, and hundreds of publications to discover at the art book fair, alongside an engaging public talks programme with a series of discursive events taking place online and in-person.
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PhotoIreland Festival 2022
Under the title Opening The Gates, the 13th edition of PhotoIreland Festival presented the most comprehensive overview on the History and Practice of Photography in Ireland to date, running 7th July to 28th August 2022 in various locations, with the main venue at The Printworks, Dublin Castle.
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PhotoIreland Festival 2021
There is power in how we feed ourselves, with food being the cornerstone of cultures, ideologies, and principles. Eating or not eating can be an act of protest, feeding or not feeding — an act of control; food brings people together and pushes them apart.
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PhotoIreland Festival 2020
In 2020, the festival was brought to you through two separate channels, navigating our virtual and physical worlds: online with stimulating participative events, and offline, both in print through OVER journal, and at The Library Project.
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PhotoIreland Festival 2019
10th AnniversaryFrom May to July, we celebrated 10 years of a festival that has been actively looking at what we were missing in Ireland, and what the world was missing of Ireland.
The Museum Of Contemporary Photography of Ireland, at The Printworks Dublin Castle, with the kind support of OPW; a temporary space for an on-going research project that we started in 2019.
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PhotoIreland Festival 2018
On AbortionIn 2018, aligned to a historic moment for Ireland, the festival focused on two very different practices engaging with Women’s Rights: Laia Abril and Sarah Cullen. This year brought to Ireland the first presentation of the EU Photography Platform Futures.
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PhotoIreland Festival 2017
The Recount of ConflictIn 2017, the festival explored how Photography is used to share accounts of personal experiences related to conflict. This year also presented a brand new and important alternative to the portfolio review – Critical Practice Reviews. read more »
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PhotoIreland Festival 2016
The 2016 saw the launch of the second edition of New Irish Works, the Dublin leg of an ambitious EU project Flâneur: Urban Narratives, and the main show IDEALS which challenged standards in exhibition making as far as Photography is concerned. read more »
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PhotoIreland Festival 2015
The 2015 edition presented a selection of practices focused on experimentation and personal research, looking at ways in which photographers challenge themselves with what Lars von Trier called ‘obstructions’. read more »
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PhotoIreland Festival 2014
Truths, Facts, Fictions, Lies.The 2014 edition focused on the use of images in our everyday. Whether in the private or the public sphere, we need them for sharing and obtaining details regarding experiences, news, and events. It is all about storytelling. read more »
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PhotoIreland Festival 2013
New Irish WorksNew Irish Works presented photographic projects by 25 artists, proposing a selection of what constitutes a testament to the wealth and legacy of photography in Ireland. read more »
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PhotoIreland Festival 2012
On MigrationA very relevant issue for Ireland, ‘Migration: Diaspora and Cultural Identity’ was the proposed theme for 2012. The main shows offered a wide range of views on migration, and it included a great selection of key photobooks.
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PhotoIreland Festival 2011
Collaborative ChangeOffering a positive and constructive view to a financial crisis, the second edition explored the idea of ‘Collaborative Change’ as an strategy to pull individual’s energies into a collective effort, questioning an urge for individualism. We published Martin Parr’s Best Books of the Decade. read more »
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PhotoIreland Festival 2010
A Celebration of PhotographySupported by the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport, the first festival edition was developed as a celebration of Photography in Ireland, involving over 30 venues around Dublin city center, listing hundreds of Photographers.
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Visit our festival archive to learn more about previous editions.
