Time and space
photography by
Thomas Dozol
Henri Cartier-Bresson famously described photography’s ambition as capturing the “decisive moment”: the instant when meaning and form align with clarity. In Time and Space, Thomas Dozol begins where that premise ends. His portraits resist fixation. Moments become unstable — porous, layered, reversible. Sitters do not hold still; they dissolve into duration. These images do not decide. They diffuse.
Cartier-Bresson suggests truth lies in singularity, endlessly reproducible once seized. Yet no moment exists alone, just as no person is isolated, even when working in solitude. Dozol photographs friends, often in their studios, across several rolls per session. Later, in his own studio, he chronologically layers the twelve exposures of a single roll into one image. Analog film imposes linearity — discrete frames, each registering a body in time — which Dozol then transforms.
Layering here is alchemical rather than additive. Figures merge with surroundings; gestures repeat and cancel; interior states become inseparable from exterior space. The sitter appears not as a fixed subject but as a continuum. What might read as fragmentation becomes permeability: the psyche leaking across the image.
Time and Space, presented at The Horse, questions photography’s claim to represent either time or identity faithfully. We are not best understood when frozen in a single moment. We are better approached as unstable, relational, and continually unfolding.
The Horse Gallery
7th November - 6th December, 2025
3 Bethesda Place,
Dublin, D01 EY29
Emma O’Brien
What lingers
photography by
Nazlı Yıldırım, Niamh Barry, Emma O’Brien and Basil Al-Rawi
Photography has always carried traces of memory, of place, of presence. In a world shaped by displacement, conflict, and environmental unease, these traces no longer stay still. They shift, overlap, blur. Borders soften, memories falter or reform, and what feels fragile often becomes what endures.
This exhibition brings together works that lean into that instability. It features images that explore memory in flux, the porous boundaries between identities and geographies, and the quiet strength found in moments of vulnerability. Here, light is more than illumination; it holds weight. Fragility is more than weakness; it carries defiance. The subtle becomes a form of resistance and the in-between becomes a space of meaning.
Together, these photographs suggest that what lingers is not always loud or monumental, but what slips, drifts, and resists being pinned down. In their softness, they hold us.
Artists:
Nazlı Yıldırım
Niamh Barry
Emma O’Brien
Basil Al-Rawi
Curated by Ayesha Amad
Abhainn Studio
21st November - 3rd December, 2025
Enterprise centre, Unit 1 Pier Rd,
Carrowhubbuck South,
Enniscrone, Co. Sligo, F26 E060
Linda Brownlee
Knitted
project by
photographer Linda Brownlee and stylist Aisling Farinella
Knitted documents contemporary knitting practice in a small Donegal town. The photographic series explores fading traditional skills, local industry, landscape, and the people who shape a sense of place. Portraits of knitters sit alongside images of locals styled in contemporary knitwear by Irish designers. Whether hand-knitted or machine-made, the process continues to connect and sustain community. The Kilcar yarn factory—where history and innovation meet—appears throughout the work, prompting reflections on materiality and the evolution of knitwear today.
Presented during Irish Design Week, the Dublin event brings together photography, sound installation, and a panel discussion. The project is a collaboration between photographer Linda Brownlee and stylist Aisling Farinella, with exhibition design supported by curator and art director Dee Morgan-Smyth. Brownlee’s abstracted documentary approach blends image and sound, offering a contemporary take on the storytelling traditions surrounding knitting. Farinella contributes a perspective rooted in international fashion, Irish design, sustainability, and modern knitwear, shifting nostalgic narratives toward the present.
Brownlee’s practice focuses on the relationships between community, culture, and place, often using subtle observation and juxtaposition to explore shifting environments. Farinella’s work highlights identity and individuality, while Morgan-Smyth creates immersive, contemporary contexts for Irish craft and creativity.
The Chocolate Factory
21st November, 2025
26 King's Inns Street,
Dublin, D01 P2W7
Daragh Soden
Ladies & Gentlemen
photography by
Daragh Soden
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Photography at the Hyères Festival in 2017, Daragh Soden emerged on the international scene almost ten years ago with Young Dubliners .
During this month dedicated to photography, the CCI presents a selection from its new series of large-format portraits, Ladies & Gentlemen , which raise questions about gender roles, the photographer-subject relationship, and the performative nature of identity. Positioning himself both behind and in front of the lens, Daragh states: “I decided to play myself in front of the camera, addressing the sometimes awkward relationship between author and subject. Like drag artists, I subvert as much as I confirm the roles expected of me. Whether as an admirer or collaborator, narcissist or voyeur, I explore different dynamics in each session, ranging from alpha male dominance to passive servitude.”
Irish Cultural Centre
14th November - December 21st, 2025
5, rue des Irlandais,
75005 Paris, France
Maija Tammi: Detail of the artwork Hulda & Lilli, 2023
Empathy Machine – A Groundbreaking Exploration of Human Emotion
photography by
Maija Tammi
Photo Museum Ireland is proud to present Empathy Machine, a groundbreaking solo exhibition by Finnish artist and researcher Maija Tammi. At the heart of the exhibition is Hulda & Lilli, an immersive installation that fuses art and science in a powerful narrative experience.
Visitors begin their journey by making a choice that shapes how they engage with a series of intimate, fairytale-like stories presented in photographs, illuminated texts, and a large-scale video projection. They get to follow the story, biological development and feelings of either a female chameleon called Hulda, or a female locust called Lilli. Designed to provoke genuine emotional responses, this engaging exhibition is a kind of inventive human experiment. It encourages viewers to question how empathy is created, and how their own emotions are experienced and understood.
A dedicated ‘debriefing room’ at the end of the exhibition offers visitors fresh perspectives to reflect on their emotional journey. With insights ranging from neuroscience and biology to film and media studies, visitors have the opportunity to deepen their understanding of empathy as a human experience.
This is the Irish premiere of Tammi’s acclaimed work, and Photo Museum Ireland is proud to present this ambitious project in partnership with the Finnish Museum of Photography with support from the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Finnish Institute and the Embassy of Finland in Ireland. The accompanying series of engagement events is supported by Taighde Éireann/Research Ireland and is part of the exciting Science Week 2025 national programme.
Photo Museum Ireland
8th November 2025 – 1st February 2026
Meeting House Square
Temple Bar
Dublin, D02 X406
Adrian O’Carroll / Spinc I
Twice Awake
photography by
Adrian O’Carroll
Arian O’Carroll’s chosen domain, landscape photography, transcends the picturesque. It is explored as a dualistic realm: a sanctuary for reflection and, simultaneously, a mirror of the unpredictable and the unsettling. O’Carroll draws his gaze across the geological spectrum, featuring the ancient, deep-time solidity of Wicklow alongside the raw, geologically nascent volatility of Iceland. Yet, his inquiry deliberately shuns the quest for mere beauty or serenity. Instead, O Carroll’s work is an excavation of the unresolved. Through a deliberate darkly muted palette and a lean toward abstraction, he strips away the familiarity of these scenes to reveal a deeper, disquieting resonance. The external landscape becomes a projection of the internal terrain, presenting the viewer with all that remains complex and unsettled within the human psyche
Adrian O’Carroll is a Dublin-based photographic artist originally from Southwest Donegal. Studying and working in photography primarily in London in his twenties, O Carroll returned to the medium in his fifties. He has published two books of his work through Oonagh Young Gallery and his photographs are featured in numerous private collections and he has exhibited in many galleries in Ireland and internationally. His work recently won The Progressive Vision Curtin O’Donoghue Emerging Photographic Artist Award in 2023.
Beyond his artistic output, O’Carroll has a notable history in arts advocacy and leadership. He served as a Board Member of Project Arts Centre in Dublin for nine years and has been on the Board of the National Gallery of Ireland since 2023 and Chair of the Board of Guardians and Governors of the Gallery since 2024.
Oonagh Young Gallery
5th November - 19th December, 2025
1 James Joyce Street,
Liberty Corner,
Dublin D01 X2Y8
Solastalgia
photography by
David Farrell
Irish artist David Farrell is perhaps better known for his contemporary documentary works, such as Innocent Landscapes and The Swallowing Tree. These long-term projects explore the searches of the Southern Irish landscape for those known as the Disappeared from the conflict in Northern Ireland. In recent years, he has more fully embraced a diaristic methodology in making photographs that has always been latent in his practice. His life and work enfold a hybrid of the German terms lebenskünstler [1] and gesamtkunstwerk,[2] all the while embracing the Beckettian questioning of existence. In exploring multiple genres of photographic and installation practice, Solastalgia presents a meditation on the artist’s personal and poetic relationship with photography and quotidian existence.
There is also an overhang from the flooding in Emilia Romagna in 2023 that destroyed significant aspects of his archive and home, as explored in the inner room within the space. Occasionally, the series is punctuated by intimate moments from Farrell’s domestic life, reflecting on topics of love, loss, endurance, and the singular presence and influence of his wife Gogo. His approach is also shaped by daily walks with his dog, Click, who serves not just as a loyal companion but as a grounding presence. The exhibition reveals an inner monologue where the photographs, in conversation with each other, extend the notion of narrative beyond the single image. Though seemingly a departure from the work we are familiar with, the images remain as we have known them: quiet and haunting, confronting memories with a tough beauty.
Born in Dublin, David Farrell read Chemistry at UCD, graduating with a Ph.D in 1987. He has worked independently and on communion projects with Gogo Della Luna (Gudòk). Received the European Publishers Award for Photography in 2001 for Innocent Landscapes and has published three further books, Nè vicino nè lontano. A Lugo (2007), The Swallowing Tree (2014), and Before, During, After…Almost (2016).
He has exhibited in Ireland and internationally. He has been awarded the Curtin/O’Donoghue Photography Award twice at the RHA annual exhibition in 2012 and 2016. David Farrell – Elusive Moments, a documentary by Donald Taylor Black (Poolbeg Productions), premiered at the Cork Film Festival 2008 and was broadcast on Irish Television as part of ‘The Look of the Irish’ series on Irish photography.
International Centre for the Image
18th October - 23rd December, 2025
Cultural Unit, Building 2, Coopers Cross
Mayor Street Upper, North Wall
Dublin
Barbara Diener was been selected to participate in the Sample-Studios Spike Island Summer Residency 2025. Barbara has prepared a new body of work which responds to Spike Island’s rich heritage and characteristic landscape. She engaged with the island and its layered, complicated history, through a contemplative and responsive lens. She has been especially drawn to its complex architecture and the traces left behind by those who once lived or were held there.
Barbara’s lens-based and research-driven practice spans both video production and photography and often incorporates sculptural elements and artefacts. In her photographs, Diener has focused on the areas of the island less accessible to most visitors. In response to the multi-faceted and complex narratives and practices associated with Spike Island, she employs a variety of visual methods—long exposures, mirrors, light and shadow—to allude to the many layers of the past and stories of the people who have inhabited the site.
In this exhibition Diener has created a multi-media installation, overstimulating at times, that combines video, scored by d. stine, and resin sculptures, which encapsulate dried seaweed gathered on the shores of Spike Island. These sculptures reflect her ongoing interest in the waters and shores surrounding the island. The seaweed, once fresh and full of moisture, is now dried and fragile. Despite their decaying state, these resilient plants retain their form and continue to inspire wonder. Diener merges natural and artificial elements in this work, a recurring theme in her practice and across the island, highlighting the delicate balance between the organic and the constructed.
This residency is delivered in partnership with Spike Island Cork and Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh and is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Lord Mayor’s Pavilion
10th October - 8th November, 2025
Fitzgerald’s Park
Cork
Right Here, Right Now
presented by
Rua Red
'Right Here, Right Now’ is a group exhibition of work that speaks to the urgency of the present moment, that reflects lived realities, challenges inherited systems and reimagines futures from the ground up.
Potsdamer Platz is a project by Susan Gogan. It is a moving image work that centres around the re-staging of a key scene in Wim Wenders’s Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire), 1987. Moving through both time and space, a young child retraces the footsteps of two characters (Homer and Cassiel) from Wenders’s film around the space of Potsdamer Platz in central Berlin, which in 1987 was a wasteland of rubble, grass and weeds since its destruction in World War II. It is a place that has historically manifested massive turmoil and societal upheaval and is currently a privately owned icon of global capital.
The child, Etta, coexists in both the present and the future and her unique spatial movements are a politically active use of space, rupturing the dominance of precarious global market forces creating a dramatically changed landscape. This work imagines the return of Potsdamer Platz into a wasteland, somehow reclaiming the space back from private corporate ownership and creating future possibilities for a new beginning.
© 2020
Rua Red
3rd October - 15th November, 2025
Tallaght
Dublin, D24 KV8N, Ireland
In Her Own Image / Gathering Time / Fotodziennik
photography by
Zofia Rydet, Anna Beata Bohdziewicz, Teresa Gierzyńska, and Aneta Grzeszykowska
As part of the UK/Poland Cultural Season 2025, Belfast Exposed presents three simultaneous exhibitions this autumn, showcasing four seminal Polish photographers: Zofia Rydet, Anna Beata Bohdziewicz, Teresa Gierzyńska, and Aneta Grzeszykowska. The UK/Poland Cultural Season 2025, a collaboration between the British Council, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, and the Polish Cultural Institute in London, aims to foster lasting cultural partnerships and explore shared themes of migration, diversity, openness, and tolerance.
Across generations and distinct approaches, these artists use photography to interrogate identity, memory, and the visibility of women’s lives. Their work transforms the camera into a tool of self-definition, resistance, and storytelling, reclaiming image-making as an act of agency.
Rydet’s Sociological Record archives Polish domestic life, blending rigorous documentation with deep empathy. Bohdziewicz’s Photo-Diary, begun in the 1980s, weaves text and image to entwine the personal with the political. Gierzyńska’s About Her series stages her own body within intimate domestic settings, insisting that self-scrutiny carries political weight. Grzeszykowska, in works such as Album and Selfie, fragments and reconstructs her image to confront fragility and instability in an image-saturated age.
Together, their practices create an intergenerational dialogue, demonstrating how women have used photography to examine identity and cultural memory while reshaping the possibilities of the medium itself.
Belfast Exposed Photography
2nd October - 20th Decemebr, 2025
23 Donegall Street
Belfast, BT1 2FF
Where mountains are mere hills
photography by
Maria Maarbjerg
There is a Denmark beyond the postcards, a place that doesn’t demand attention but lingers in the mind all the same. West Jutland is this kind of place: not a destination so much as a stubborn fact, shaped by wind and hard light, where the soil itself seems resigned to scarcity. It is the anti-Copenhagen, unhurried, unpolished, unconcerned with being loved, a reflection of the country’s quiet humbleness, where few have too much and fewer too little.
Yet there is beauty here, though it asks you to look twice. These analogue photographs, taken around Holstebro, are an argument against forgetting. They trace the quiet dignity of a landscape that persists, not in spite of its obscurity, but almost because of it. This is not the Denmark of design magazines or bicycle lanes. It is something older, quieter, a place that endures by seeming, at first glance, to have nothing to prove.
Maria Maarbjerg is a Dublin based artist originally from Denmark. Her practice centres on the lineage of static imagery, primarily through photography, with a particular affinity for analogue techniques due to their deliberate, contemplative pace. She works across both print and projected forms, forging connections between images through a thoughtful fusion of text and recorded dialogue. At the core of her practice is a deep fascination with journalism and the intricate art of crafting narratives, no matter how abstract they may appear.
Maarbjerg studied at Fatamorgana - The Danish School of Photography, and holds a BA in Fine Art from the Technological University of Dublin. Her work has been recognised with several awards and residencies, including A4 Sounds Studio’s We Only Want the Earth Studio Residency, the RDS Visual Art Award, and Fire Station Residential Studio Award.
She has exhibited in both Denmark and Ireland, including a solo exhibition, Ode to Changes, at the RHA in Dublin in 2022. She also took part in the group exhibition All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun at Dublin Castle and, in 2025, exhibited Ten-to-Two, a solo show at The Complex. She is currently a studio artist at The Complex in Dublin.
The Europa Gallery
17th September - 5th October, 2025
11 Chatham StreetDublin 2
Dublin 2
A R C H I P E L A G O
presented by
RHA
in collaboration with
Island Photographers
This September, the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts (RHA) opens A R C H I P E L A G O, the largest group photography exhibition it has ever staged, a landmark moment for lens-based art in Ireland.
Curated by RHA’s Davey Moor, the exhibition brings together seventeen intergenerational artists responding to the vast scale of the RHA’s Main Gallery, the largest single gallery exhibition space in the country. Many have embraced the challenge with in-the-round installations and ambitious formats that push far beyond the traditional photo show.
The works span a spectrum of contemporary concerns: the poetry of the everyday, human and altered landscapes, identity, sexuality, borders both visible and invisible, and reflections on Ireland’s changing cultural spirit.
The project is a collaboration with Island Photographers, an artist-led collective that has become a vital voice for Irish photography. Since its founding, the group has championed photographers through talks, workshops, and exhibitions, fostering a renewed sense of community. With A R C H I P E L A G O, they aim to mark not just a milestone for the RHA, but a broader cultural moment for photography in Ireland — one that signals much more to come.
Artists: Conor Horgan*, Jialin Long, Shane Lynam*, Eimear Lynch, Fionn McCann*, Jan McCullough, Malcolm McGettigan*, Yvette Monahan*, Kate Nolan*, Clodagh O’Leary, Ciara Richardson, Daragh Soden, Brían Sparks*, Pádraig Spillane, Izabela Szczutkowska, Agata Stoinska*, Ruby Wallis (*Island Photographers)
The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts
11th September - 26th October, 2025
15 Ely Place
Dublin
D02 A213
Paul Gaffney
Approaching Stillness
presented by
Paul Gaffney
In association with Sounds from a Safe Harbour Festival 2025, Lavit Gallery presents Paul Gaffney’s experimental video installation Approaching Stillness.
Created during winter nights under the full moon, the work stems from Gaffney’s time in the Glen of the Downs nature reserve in County Wicklow, one of the east coast’s last oak woodlands. Using extreme low-light video techniques, he traced the slow movement of moonlight across the steep valley. The installation reflects on balance — between stillness and activity, the ancient and the modern, the immovable and the shifting. Visitors enter a darkened, intimate space, invited to spend time in solitude, fully immersed in the work.
Supported by an Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary and Wicklow Arts Office Strategic Projects Award, the exhibition also receives backing from MTU Arts Office, Sounds from a Safe Harbour, and Lavit Gallery. An in-conversation with Gaffney takes place at 5pm on Friday 12th September.
Based in Cork, Gaffney explores how landscape can be experienced and represented through movement and multisensory engagement. His award-winning work has been widely exhibited and published internationally.
“Gaffney’s photographs emerge out of intuition, coincidence, and an underlying longing for connection and stillness. And although it’s tempting to call them landscapes, they are created through different ways of knowing a place – ways that acknowledge the moving, feeling body, rather than the distanced and distancing eye, as the foundation of our experience.” Eugenie Shinkle – Reader in Photography, University of Westminster.
Lavit Gallery
11th September - 18th October, 2025
15 Ely Place
Dublin
D02 A213
Paul Gaffney
Page Turners:
an exhibition of artists’ books
PArtists’ books are a distinctive art form in which the artist creates a book to express their ideas. This autumn exhibition in the cathedral ambulatory invites visitors to linger and spend time exploring selected artists’ books from across Ireland, the UK and France. Selected national and international book artists include Ambeck Design, Coracle Press, Helen Douglas, Paul Gaffney, Helena Grimes, ottoGraphic Books, Road Books, and Tom Sowden.
Page-turners is co-curated with MTU Crawford College of Art & Design and is an important moment at the cathedral as they pioneer a rolling arts programme.
As part of the exhibition there will also be a panel discussion at the cathedral at 12:30pm on 18th September 2025.
St Fin Barre’s Cathedral
4th September - 30th October, 2025
Bishopscourt, Washington St.
Cork
Mandy O’Neill
FORMWORK
photography by
Mandy O’Neill
The point of departure for this exhibition was Mandy O’Neill’s recent practice-based PhD, where she examined the social and material implications of housing development and dereliction in the Dublin suburb of Cabra. Her research explored the ideological shifts in Irish housing policy since the mid-20th century, tracing the move from housing as a public good to housing as a commodity, with emphasis on planning. In a broader sense, O’Neill’s practice considers the politics of space and place, and the power relations that shape the built environment.
For the exhibition FORMWORK at Ballina Arts Centre, O’Neill presents a body of work that draws on her PhD research while also responding to a specific site of development and dereliction in Dublin’s North Inner City. Formwork refers to the support systems of grids, panels, props, and beams used in construction. O’Neill has extensively photographed such structures across the city and suburbs, using these images as references for sculptural installations. Metaphorically, the term also speaks to processes of making and construction, and to the social and material support structures central to her practice. This site-specific installation combines architectural, sculptural, photographic, print-based, textual, and aural forms, focusing on spatial and material experience.
Ballina Arts Centre
6th September - 1st November, 2025
Barrett St,
Carrowcushlaun West,
Ballina, Co. Mayo
Mal McCann
This Is Not a War
photography by
Mal McCann
Belfast Exposed is pleased to present Mal McCann: This Is Not a War, a powerful new exhibition by award-winning photographer and Picture Editor at The Irish News, Mal McCann.
With a career spanning over two decades, McCann has documented the social, political, and cultural life of Northern Ireland with an unflinching eye for human emotion and visual storytelling. His work ranges from breaking news and community events to long-form photo essays exploring themes of identity, resistance, and solidarity. Mal’s photography has been widely published and exhibited, and he is known for his commitment to ethical journalism and visual integrity. His images are not only records of events but also powerful commentaries on justice, and the human condition.
In recent years, McCann has been documenting Palestine solidarity movements in Belfast. Mal McCann: This Is Not a War captures the protests that have swept the city in response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Through his lens, McCann records the grief, rage, and unity of communities thousands of miles from the conflict yet deeply connected to it.
“These are not just photos of protest; they are documents of people refusing to look away.” — Mal McCann.
In a world of uncomfortable silence, it is the duty of journalists to tell the truth. At The Irish News, that means reporting with courage, clarity and compassion, from raw, emotional storytelling to consistent, humanising coverage of Palestinians and their lived realities. Mal’s work continues that mission, keeping Palestine visible in the public conversation.
This exhibition invites audiences to witness a moment in history through images that are as much about Belfast as they are about Gaza, images that speak to justice, memory, and the enduring power of solidarity.
Belfast Exposed Photography
3rd- 20th September, 2025
23 Donegall Street
Belfast, BT1 2FF
Tolu Ogunware
New Voices in Irish Photography
presented by
Photo Museum Ireland
Photo Museum Ireland is proud to announce TALENTS 2025, a major exhibition spotlighting eight of Ireland’s most exciting emerging photographic artists. Opening to the public on Saturday 30 August 2025, the exhibition celebrates the bold, diverse perspectives shaping contemporary photography across the island of Ireland.
TALENTS 2025 features new work by: Niamh Barry, Ishmael Claxton, Evanna Devine, Sabrina Faria, Roisin Lambert, Ben Malcolmson, Conn McCarrick, Tolu Ogunware.
From evocative accounts of the Irish borderlands, to personal narratives of home, memory, and loss, to critical reflections on the state of institutions and society, TALENTS 2025 encompasses a wide range of photographic practices and urgent issues. Taken together they show how photography can address contemporary concerns in a meaningful, timely fashion. The artists developed their projects through Photo Museum Ireland’s comprehensive artists’ workplace residencies and commissions, which offer tailored support including world-class mentoring, training, curatorial engagement, and specialised production assistance. Residencies represented in the exhibition include the Early Career Artist Awards Residency, African-Irish Residency, and Diversity Residency, showcasing Photo Museum Ireland’s ongoing commitment to fostering new talent and amplifying underrepresented voices.
Photo Museum Ireland
30th August - 5th October, 2025
Meeting House Square
Temple Bar
Dublin, D02 X406
Frits de Ridder
Frits de Ridder: Staring at the Sun
photography by
Frits de Ridder
For the first time in over thirty years, the powerful and deeply personal work of Dutch photographer Frits de Ridder (1954–1994) will be showcased in an exhibition, opening on August 7, 2025, at Belfast Exposed. Frits de Ridder: Staring at the Sun presents an unflinching portrait of life, illness, and resistance during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
This landmark exhibition, realised with the full support of de Ridder’s family and unprecedented access to his archive, marks the first public presentation of his photographic estate since his passing. Curated by José Neves, the exhibition draws from the extensive collection of De Ridder’s work held by the International Institute of Social History (IISH/IISG) in Amsterdam.
De Ridder’s work provides a powerful visual documentation of his experience living with HIV/AIDS, while also reflecting the broader struggle for dignity, visibility, and justice that characterised the experiences of those affected by the virus in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His photographs depict a period marked by stigma and fear, but also by resilience and political awakening. By opening his previously unseen archive to the public, the exhibition seeks to encourage reflection, activism, and collective remembrance. Moreover, it places de Ridder’s legacy in a current context, as the aim of eliminating new HIV transmissions by 2030 remains achievable but increasingly at risk.
Frits de Ridder (1954-1994) was a Dutch self-taught photographer whose work offers one of the most direct and personal testimonies of living with HIV/AIDS in late‑20th‑century Europe. Alongside his personal practice, de Ridder built a career in commercial photography, working predominantly in the theatre and music world and contributing to newspapers and magazines. Diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1987, he began using self‑portraiture to document the physical and emotional realities of the illness — offering an insider’s perspective at a time when most images of the epidemic were created by outsiders.
Belfast Exposed Photography
7th Aug 2025 - 20th September, 2025
23 Donegall Street
Belfast, BT1 2FF
Rethinking the Image
presented by
International Centre for the Image
PhotoIreland launches the International Centre for the Image on 17th July, a new venue dedicated to Photography and the Visual Arts, and an ambitious new cultural space at the heart of the Dublin Docklands. The space offers local communities and visitors alike a year-round programme of exhibitions and cultural events, creating an ambitious cultural destination that attracts leading international and Irish artists.
Celebrating the launch of PhotoIreland’s new cultural space, Rethinking the Image is a two-day event devised to explore, through a series of conversations, the value and place of the image in contemporary art practices and for society. Taking place from 9 am to 5.30 pm on July 18th and 19th, the event brings together local and international participants, ranging from artists to curators and researchers, and it includes the participation of artists involved in the inaugural exhibition Foreword.
In Conversation is a set of public talks supported by the Arts Council of Ireland at the International Centre for the Image, providing context, interpretations, and perspectives to help all audiences engage with and understand the artworks presented at the centre. Rethinking the Image is the first event in the series.
International Centre for the Image
18th July - 19th July, 2025
Cultural Unit, Building 2, Coopers Cross
Mayor Street Upper, North Wall, Dublin 1
Dublin
Adrian O’Carroll
© Archive of Modern Conflict, 2008. From Ed Jones and Timothy Prus’ The Corinthians
Since 2010, PhotoIreland has been actively acquiring publications for its collection, including many by the Archive of Modern Conflict (AMC). For this special exhibition, PhotoIreland and AMC join forces to present in Ireland, for the first time, over 60 titles from their extensive catalogues.
Founded in 1991, the Archive of Modern Conflict has grown into one of the world’s leading private collections dedicated to vernacular photography, artefacts, curiosities, and ephemera. Initially focused on images of war and conflict, the archive has expanded into a vast and thematically diverse repository, reflecting life in all its forms through the photographic image.
AMC launched its publishing imprint in 2007 with Nein Onkel, winner of the Historical Photobook Award at Les Rencontres d’Arles. Since then, its photobooks — published under AMC Books and Bone Idle — have garnered international recognition, winning or being shortlisted for major awards including PHotoESPAÑA, the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize, and the Paris Photo–Aperture Foundation Award. AMC also produces its experimental journal, AMC2, each issue designed as a unique object.
Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, the exhibition is presented in the International Centre for the Image’s library, where visitors can explore this extraordinary collection until 14 September 2025.
International Centre for the Image
17th July - 21st September, 2025
Cultural Unit, Building 2, Coopers Cross
Mayor Street Upper, North Wall, Dublin 1
Dublin
Adrian O’Carroll
Another Time Undone
Vivienne Dick, Jill Quigley & Adrian O’Carroll
Curated by Eamonn Maxwell, Another Time Undone explores how family, land, and legacy shape artistic practice. While Vivienne Dick, Jill Quigley, and Adrian O’Carroll were all born in Co. Donegal, the exhibition isn’t directly about the county—it reflects on the residues of life in the places they come from.
Vivienne Dick’s A Skinny Little Man Attacked Daddy (1994), filmed on Betacam in Donegal, captures everyday family moments and will be shown in Donegal for the first time. Her Maghera photographs, shot in 2024, continue her exploration of the Northwest’s layered landscape.
Jill Quigley playfully disrupts expectations of rural architecture through photographic installation. Her work often engages with abandoned spaces, creating tension between creative gesture and practicality.
Adrian O’Carroll presents a new body of work reflecting on themes of isolation, fragility, and our relationship with nature. His images, both urban and rural, human and non-human, evoke intimacy without identification.
Though lens-based, this is not a traditional photography show. Instead, it is a journey through image-making that is deeply personal, thoughtful, and evocative—each artist capturing time in a distinct and resonant way.
Regional Cultural Centre
12th July – 20th September, 2025
Cove Hill, Port Rd
Letterkenny
Co. Donegal, F92 C8HD
Maria Maarbjerg
Why, in the name of all that is silent and good, does my washing machine emit a series of beeps to announce the cessation of its labours? As if the abrupt halt of that thunderous spin cycle, which btw shakes the kitchen like a minor earthquake, would escape my notice! And why, pray tell, must my laptop greet me with a jaunty jingle each morning, as though it were a butler in a pantomime? And let us not even begin on Iarnród Éireann, that tireless herald of doom, forever intoning its twin commandments: Thou shalt not abandon thy belongings, nor shalt thou squat in a seat that hath been pre-ordained by the gods of online booking.
The world, my dear interlocutor, is a cacophonous bazaar of beeps, chimes, and dire warnings. Every device, it seems, has taken upon itself the sacred duty of informing us of things we either already know or would be better off not knowing. The modern person is a creature besieged by noise, assailed from all sides by the ceaseless chatter of screens, the yammering of advertisements, the electronic nagging of unfinished tasks. Her phone bleats news at her, her inbox whimpers for attention, and even her music player, in a fit of algorithmic presumption, suggests songs she might like, as if she hadn't had enough on her plate already.
And yet, and yet!.. silence persists. It lurks in the corners of our world, waiting to be discovered, waiting to be heard. My dear visitor, this exhibition - this small photo poem, is an ode to those rare and fleeting moments when time itself seems to pause, when the absence of sound becomes a presence, thick as fog. In a universe that insists on shouting itself hoarse, these photographs are an invitation to lean in close, and hear nothing at all.
The Complex
Preview: 27th June 6pm - 8pm
28th June - 7th July, 2025
In The Gallery
21 Arran Street East
Dublin 7, D07YY97
Adam and Dyba Lach
SOWING THE SEEDS OF THE WILD
screening by
Adam and Dyba Lach
The Queen’s Film Theatre will host a screening of ‘Sowing the Seeds of the Wild’ by Dyba & Adam Lach, followed by a Director’s Q&A and the official programme launch of Metamorfoza.
‘Sowing the Seeds of the Wild’ invites questions about the freedom of rivers and people, the relationship between humans and nature, ecosystem entanglements and the presence of wildness within us all.
Overwhelmed by the degradation of his beloved river, a musician sets out on a 1,300 kilometre journey in a traditional wooden boat, symbolically reclaiming the wilderness on its behalf. Over 40 days, he experiences the non-human natural world with rare attentiveness, listening closely to the primordial sounds of the river and momentarily leaving behind the noise of everyday life.
His path becomes a way to reflect on rivers and human impact on the environment, recalling the environmental disaster on the Oder River, one of the largest in modern European history. In the silence and solitude, in the sounds of spring returning to life, in the voice of the river and the sound of water, he seeks hope for a future with balance. For himself, for his daughter, for the world.
Kino Queen’s Film Theatre zaprasza na pokaz filmu „Sowing the Seeds of the Wild” autorstwa Dyby i Adama Lachów, po którym odbędzie się spotkanie z reżyserami oraz oficjalna inauguracja programu Metamorfoza.
Queen’s Film Theatre
23rd June, 2025
20 University Square
Belfast
Diana Lenonek
CENTRE FOR LIVING THINGS
photography by
Diana Lelonek
The Centre for the Living Things is the research pata-institution founded in 2016, in order to examine, collect and popularise the knowledge concerning new humanotic nature forms. All exhibits gathered in the Institute’s collection are abandoned objects, used and no longer needed commodities – wastes of human overproduction, which have become the natural environment for many living organisms. Specimens were found in an illegal waste dumping site, where the transgression of man-derived objects and plant tissues take place.
These hybrids of plants and artificial objects are difficult to classify, as they are contemporaneously animate and inanimate. Exhibits collected in the Centre for the Living Things can’t be conventionally classified. Recently, wastes have been taking over behaviours from living matter. In the process of overproduction, ceaseless demand for constant updates of possessed goods is the reason why most of the unnecessary products seem to be out of control.
Centre for the Living Things is aimed to describe mechanisms appearing in the sphere of rejection and uselessness. In this sphere, products are no longer tools used by people. Products participate in almost every process that occurs in the biosphere, hence we can’t definitively divide economic or social processes from so-called natural processes.
Belfast City Hall Lawn
9th - 30th June, 2025
Donegall Square N
Belfast, BT1 5GS
Ethna Rose O’Regan
What does it mean to know?
photographed by
Ethna Rose O’Regan
The LAB Gallery presents What does it mean to know? a new exhibition by Irish artists Ethna Rose O’Regan and Sinéad McCann (working in collaboration with writer and sociologist Louise Brangan).
Magdalene Laundries were once vast islands of abandonment marking our Irish social landscape. They are closed now, but their legacies linger. When the gates were locked for the last time in 1996, it was with a whimper not a bang. The secrets were sealed off, and the nation moved on, or so it seemed. But this recent past has come back to haunt the present. In response, there has been handwringing, questioning, asking who-knew-whats and the lamenting if-only-we’d-knowns. Reflecting on this historical reckoning, the author John Banville wrote a short article in the New York Times that suggested a vital question remained unexamined:
O’Regan’s photographic series, ‘After Magdalene’ (2006-2009), was made in the last of the Magdalene Laundries on Sean McDermott Street, which officially closed in 1996. O’Regan first gained access in 2006. The sense of despair and isolation which was palpable everywhere, seemed to permeate the very wallpaper and floorboards of this building. Her images of the remnants and detritus that were left behind, evoke a feeling of an indescribable sadness of so many lives disavowed. With this work, she wishes to create a space for reflection and urge people to never forget our past so that this abuse of power towards Irish women will never happen again.
McCann and Brangan’s unique collaboration comprises two new artworks: ‘NO BABIES WERE BORN THERE.’, a large scale sculptural text work, and ‘I’m still there’, a light and sound installation. We do not present the Laundries as some kind of historically sequestered event that took place far away, back then, and over there. Instead, both works invite people to consider some of the narrative and statistical fictions that guide how we make sense of the Laundries today. We invite the viewer to reflect upon the question: What does it mean to remember?
The LAB Gallery
12th June - 26th July, 2025
Foley Street
Dublin 1
Anna Zagrodzka
Alternaria Alternata
photographed by
Anna Zagrodzka
I. Genocide, biocide, ecocide
Anna Zagrodzka’s photographs offer intriguing insights into the spaces and microworlds of Nazi camps. Questions of institutionalized violence, dehumanization, trauma, witnessing and commemorating victims with research, in particular work in the field of microbiology. Conservationist’s expert reports identify bacterial cultures, fungi and mushrooms in order to establish the most effective methods of counteracting these “enemies of memory” that seek to efface evidence of the crimes committed at the sites. Oskar Hansen’s Droga (The Road) had a similar impact. Zagrodzka’s photographs serve to document the destructive nature of non-human actors engaged in the struggle for survival, dominance and space. Her images show the aggressive prevalence of life, confirming that the revitalization of a site of human death proceeds regardless, even if the inhabitation of evidence by bacteria and fungi is unplanned (and often unwanted) by humans.
II. The environmental microbiology of sites of mass murder
From a biological perspective, it is difficult to describe post-camp spaces as “spaces of death”. Laboratory studies of elements of buildings, artefacts, water and soil demonstrate the inexorable rapacity of life there. The environmental microbiology of sites of mass murder describes various lifeforms inhabiting such spaces, together with their traits, qualities and modes of being. Her photographs depicting elements of the camp landscape offer a chronicle of events and the deterioration that results from bacteria, fungi and lichen inhabiting various objects (buildings, fences as well as vegetation). Biodegradation and the corrosion caused by biological factors transforms the structure of materials, causing damage and discoloration, and ultimately leads to decomposition and ruins. Fungi, which include the Alternaria alternata in the title of Zagrodzka’s work, acquire sustenance by inhabiting various surfaces and causing the decomposition of the substances encountered.
III. Memories of life
Anna Zagrodzka’s photographic depictions of bacteria, fungi and their habitats cause us to recall something beyond the trauma of the mass murders committed at death camps. They not only refer to plants and objects, but go even further back: to the common origin and heritage of the prehistoric symbiosis that is the primary metabolism. Anna Zagrodzka’s project documents the transformation of material that also interacts with the organisms colonizing it, demonstrating their mutual resilience and adaptability as these lifeforms mutate as they encounter difficult conditions. Alternaria alternata are an important element of the microbiological version of the visual history that began with our common ancestors – bacteria. And because they themselves constitute a habitat for various lifeforms they become an element of co-evolution and point to what we have experienced and what still awaits us.
Essay by Professor Ewa Domańska, Adam Mickiewicz University
Botanic Gardens
5th June - 30th June, 2025
Dawn to Dusk
Belfast, BT7 1LP
RAW – Vault in Focus
‘Vault Artist Studios’ is the largest provider of affordable studios in Northern Ireland. We are also the most diverse multi-disciplinary studio space in the north of Ireland, with two premises in Belfast City.
We have around 100 members: active, professional artists working across the visual and performing arts. Many of our members actively use lens-based components in their individual practices, and not just our photographers and filmmakers; also our printmakers, painters, signwriters, street artists and community artists; circus performers and puppeteers; sculptors; playwrights, performers and theatre practitioners; musicians and sound artists; weavers and textile artists.
This show brings together a broad range of approaches and media, some of which responds to the ‘Environment and Climate’ theme of this year’s festival, and all of which reflects our diverse and multidisciplinary ethos.
Vault Artist Studios
6th - 11th June, 2025
Project Space
28–32 Victoria St.
Belfast, BT1 3GG
Let the cat out of the bag
presented at
IADT On Show Graduate Exhibition
Let the Cat Out of the Bag is the 2025 graduate exhibition from IADT’s BA (Hons) Photography and Visual Media programme, presented as part of the institute’s annual On Show celebration of emerging creative talent. This year's showcase features the work of final-year students who have spent the past year exploring the boundaries of photographic practice - blending documentary, conceptual, and experimental approaches to image-making.
The exhibition invites viewers to engage with a diverse range of visual narratives that reflect on contemporary issues, personal journeys, and the evolving role of photography in society. Each project serves as a testament to the students' commitment to pushing the medium's possibilities and their readiness to contribute meaningfully to the creative industries.
IADT
Launch: 29th May, 5pm -8pm
29th May - 5th June, 2025
Kill Ave, Woodpark
Dublin, A96 KH79
Karol Szymkowiak
In mid-2023, experts from the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management recorded a new visibility record on Powidzkie Lake, Poland. 10.38 meters of water transparency vertically down. The largest lake in Greater Poland has been named the cleanest in the country. The basin is under a silence zone. It has a well-developed flora and fauna and has long remained a popular leisure and recreation spot.
A parallel reality unfolds in the lake's immediate vicinity. Only a few kilometers away, in 1953 and during the Cold War, the Soviets commenced constructing a military airbase, and to this day, it remains Poland's most immense military airfield. A few years ago, the Pentagon revealed a top-secret Strategic Air Command Nuclear Weapons Requirements Study for 1959. Among the approximately 2,300 targets within the Eastern Bloc countries and China that the U.S. Strategic Air Command aimed to bomb with nuclear weapons should World War III break out also stands the Powidz airport. The target number was 0169-8629 5223-01750.
It currently houses the 33rd Airlift Base, accommodating, among others, large C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. Powidz is also home to at least a thousand U.S. troops. In 2023, a new LTESM-C logistics and equipment complex opened on the land adjacent to the base for long-term storage and repair of U.S. Army equipment. So far, around 100 hectares of forest have disappeared for the base expansion, some of which lie within the Natura 2000 area and the Powidz Landscape Park. Wide roads and roundabouts capable of accommodating heavy equipment emerged in places that a few years ago only saw field tracks. Near the base, service points addressed to American soldiers open continuously. The MSA combat assets depot, DABS mobile airbase system storage facilities, and a BFS fuel depot are also under construction.
Such investments have resulted in the Powidz facility becoming a vast aviation, logistics, and equipment complex and a leading European NATO base, certainly listed as a strategic target, yet obviously of a different superpower than before. The airport, the base, the forests, the surrounding villages, and the lake received a new number.
Hustle Coffee
5th June - 30th July, 2025
37-39 Rosemary St
Belfast,BT1 1QB
Mathieu Asselin
Monsanto: a photographic investigation
photographed by
Mathieu Asselin
Monsanto's dozens of Superfund sites ( large contaminated sites of high priority for the US Environmental Protection Agency ) across the United States alone are affecting hundreds of communities and their environment with terrifying health and ecological consequences. Monsanto® maintains strong ties with the US government, and especially with the FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration). It is a bedfellow with many other economical and political power houses around the world. The company engages in campaigns of misinformation, the persecution of institutions and individuals, including scientists, farmers and activists that dare to disclose its crimes. Monsanto is spreading new technologies and products, while scientists, ecological institutions and human rights organisations are putting out alerts about issues like public health, food safety and ecological sustainability issues on which our future on this planet depends. This is all particularly troublesome since Monsanto is entering a new chapter of disregard for our planet through the creation and commercialisation of gmos. Looking at the company’s past and present, this project aims to picture what Monsanto’s near future will look like.
Belfast Exposed
5th June - 11th July, 2025
23 Donegall Street
Belfast, BT1 2FF
Yvette Monahan
The Ocean Within
photographed by
Yvette Monahan
Otoliths, or ear stones, and salmon scales serve as living records of their lives, much like tree rings. Each layer encodes the fish's journeys, revealing the duration of their existence and the experiences that have shaped them. These remarkable structures hold a biochronology—a map of life experiences embedded and made visible within their physical forms. Their bodies carry a shared memory, telling a collective story.
Fish possess an incredible ability to create and follow a map guided by instinctual knowledge, not on paper but within their very beings. They navigate through the world using magnetic fields and respond to unseen frequencies, forging a profound connection between their biology and the forces of the planet. This living archive is not simply a static record; it continuously evolves, inviting us to participate in an ongoing narrative of life and survival.
This work delves into the rich and diverse dimensions of fish senses, bringing to light what often remains hidden: lived experience and how nature captures truths beyond human perception. Fish are not just creatures of the water but living beings deserving of our understanding in a world without human contours. These conceptual images have been printed onto two-metre-wide panels and installed at Donegal Quays in Belfast and at Portballintrae at the mouth of the River Bush, home to the AFBI research station, scientists and production partners to the work.
Location 1: The North Coast
5th June - 11th , 2025
Dawn to Dusk
Location 2: Donegall Quay
5th June - 11th , 2025
Dawn to Dusk
Aïda Muluneh
Nationhood: Memory and Hope
curated by
Anne McNeill
A powerful new photography exhibition celebrating the diversity of the UK today, exploring how people across England, Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland shape their identities and communities through memory and hope.
At its centre is The Necessity of Seeing, a major new series by acclaimed Ethiopian photographer Aïda Muluneh. Shot in Bradford, Belfast, Cardiff, and Glasgow, her surreal, symbolic images uncover hidden histories and personal stories. Also featured is A Portrait of Us, black-and-white portraits of community heroes from the same cities.
The exhibition includes new work from seven rising UK photographers, each exploring themes of identity, heritage, and social change. Shaun Connell honours his Jamaican mother and Christian faith in Bradford, while Roz Doherty captures the spirit of youth. Chad Alexander documents a multicultural hub in Dungannon; Robin Chaddah-Duke reunites activists in Cardiff; Grace Springer spotlights African and Caribbean community leaders; Miriam Ali focuses on Glasgow grassroots organisers; and Haneen Hadiy reflects Islamic symbolism in the Scottish landscape.
Curated by Anne McNeill, Nationhood is a Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture and Impressions Gallery commission, in partnership with Belfast Exposed, Ffotogallery (Cardiff), and Street Level Photoworks (Glasgow). It will tour all four nations throughout 2025.
Belfast Exposed Photography
5th June - 11th , 2025
23 Donegall Street
Belfast, BT1 2FF
Niamh Swanton
It’s All a Bit of Fun (Until Somebody Gets Hurt)
photography by
Niamh Swanton
Outset Gallery is excited to present our first solo exhibition of 2025, featuring a new series of works by Niamh Swanton.
Fresh from winning the 2024 Outset Showcase Award at OXO last November, performative photographer Niamh Swanton continues her exploration of vulnerability and humour as emotional catharsis in It’s All a Bit of Fun (Until Somebody Gets Hurt)—a title that reads like a warning, or maybe a memory. Drawing on attachment theory and dream symbolism, this new series considers how small experiences—often dismissed—can linger, mutate and become culturally encoded.
Niamh Swanton is a performative photographer, based in Dunmore East, Co. Waterford. She graduated from Crawford College of Art and Design in 2019, where she gained a degree in Fine Art. Swanton’s work revolves around the human condition. She uses both performance and staged photography to explore the inner workings of one’s mind. Creating tangible forms from the thoughts and emotions in question. Swanton uses herself as the main subject within the images as the work aids as a means of personal meditation. By obstructing her face, the images gain a sense of ambiguity. The viewer is no longer able to define an identity or a set narrative to an image.
Outset Gallery
23rd May - 26th June, 2025
14 & 15 the cornstore,
Connaught
Galway, H91 K8YV
Sharon Murphy
Mise en Abyme
photography by
Sharon Murphy
Photo Museum Ireland is delighted to present the Irish premiere of Sharon Murphy’s Mise en Abyme, a new body of work exploring Parisian carousels and theatrical décor in moments of stillness. Drawing on her background in theatre and influences from psychoanalysis and magic realism, Murphy continues her investigation into staged spaces and the performative in photography.
In Western art, mise en abyme refers to placing an image within itself. Murphy adopts this concept metaphorically to examine the boundaries between real and fictive spaces, using motifs such as theatre curtains, carousels, circus tents, and empty stages.
Her work explores the tension between hidden and revealed, illusion and disillusion, engaging with Freud’s notion of the uncanny—where the familiar becomes strange. Through presence and absence, she evokes both enchantment and unease.
This series marks a conceptual shift in Murphy’s practice, emphasizing the sculptural materiality of photography and blurring the line between real and represented space. The implied worlds are both actual and imagined, layering multiple spaces, times, and experiences. Elements of mise en abyme—doubleness, reflexivity, mirroring—enhance the depth and complexity of her visual storytelling.
Photo Museum Ireland
29th April - 29th June, 2025
Meeting House Square
Temple Bar
Dublin, D02 X406
Emma Spreadborough
You Mustn’t Go Looking
photography by
Emma Spreadborough
Photo Museum Ireland is delighted to present the first solo Irish exhibition of Emma Spreadborough’s You Mustn’t Go Looking, an imaginative body of work exploring the remnants of ancient tradition in contemporary Northern Ireland. Inspired by Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa, Spreadborough examines the intersection of religion, politics, and home, where domestic spaces symbolize safety and control, while the landscape beyond is seen as dangerous and Pagan.
Her work reflects this tension, evoking the supernatural within Northern Ireland’s mythical landscape. Staged, performative scenes suggest a haunted realm of possibility, infused with half-forgotten folk customs and childhood games. The forensic, objective style of these images is undercut by their dream-like, theatrical quality, blurring fiction and reality. These enigmatic rituals bring chaotic outside forces into the home, transforming it into a space to confront and conquer fears.
In You Mustn’t Go Looking, Spreadborough uses metaphor to explore place, belonging, and cultural memory, mirroring the uncertainty following seismic socio-political shifts in Northern Ireland. A recent census revealed a Catholic majority for the first time since the state’s formation. The landscape emerges as a site of opposing forces—past and present, tradition and change—breaking through to shape contemporary life.
Photo Museum Ireland
29th April - 29th June, 2025
Meeting House Square
Temple Bar
Dublin, D02 X406
Lucid Visions: Dreaming Through the Lens
presented by
ÍOVA
Dreams are fragmented, shifting, emotionally charged experiences which at their essence have an ephemeral, elusive quality. The show ‘Lucid Visions: Dreaming Through the Lens’ represents an opportunity for artists to manifest their dreams in all their splendour, reflecting on their own internal worlds and how they shape their waking lives.
Amazing Artist Line Up:
Jana Bulochova - Viola Boe - Conor Horgan - Susannah Appleby - Suella Wynne - Roisin Mcgrath - Fabio Grassi - Manuela Greco - Asa Barrington - Merve Yılmaz - Ferdia Roche - Richard Hogan - Adrian O'Connell - Amy O'Riordan - Dylan Larkin - Niamh Murphy - Tadhg James - James Curran - Boris Lebedev - Barry Delaney - Tereza Jobová - Elise Fisher - Aisling O - Gordon Leonard - Victoria Brosnan - Kev Sharkey - Maddie Axentoi - David Killeen - Sean Breithaupt - Merve Sagit - Rosie Dawson - Anthony Kavanagh - Sara Marcella Pirani - Christopher Lindhorst - Justyna Kosmulska - Beatrix Herriott O'Gorman - Monica Manzzi - Faolán Carey - Jamie Davis - Sean Hillen - Hollie Gilson - Clodagh O'Leary - John Foley - Harry Phipps - Ishmael Claxton
Gallery X
10th April - 26th April 2025
Opening Evening: Thursday 10th April, 6pm - 9pm
11 Hume Street
Dublin, D02T889
Tōfuku-ji, Dōju-in by Amelia
Kyoto Garden The Impermanence of Being
photography by
Amelia Stein
Oliver Sears Gallery is pleased to present a series of black and white photographs, Archival Pigment Prints on Bamboo paper from Irish photographer, Amelia Stein.
Eleven photographs of timelessness and otherness of the constructed Temple Garden landscapes in Kyoto.
Japanese Gardens have had a long-held fascination for Stein who has made her unique black and white photographs for many years in the wild, open North Mayo Landscape. Stein transports her skills of visual exploration, documentation and interpretation of observed light, shape and form of natural elements to the vocabulary of these enclosed, reimagined landscapes. Selectively, the quantities and structure of the particular language of a maintained Japanese Garden, a mirror of nature, are revealed to the viewer. One of the prints has been handcoloured using lightsafe pencils. Details are finely observed in these meticulously crafted and timeless images, small meditations on the forms contained within the Gardens, and from which they are constructed.
All works will be available to view on our website oliversearsgallery.com
Oliver Sears Gallery
5th March - 30th April 2025
Private View: Wednesday 5th March, 12pm - 7pm
33 Fitzwilliam St Upper
Dublin, D02TF82
Ragnar-Axelssonn
Prix Pictet Human
Photo Museum Ireland is delighted to host Prix Pictet Human, the latest exhibition from the world’s leading award for photography and sustainability. Founded in 2008 by the Pictet Group, the award harnesses the power of photography to highlight critical global sustainability issues. This marks the ninth year that Prix Pictet has toured to Photo Museum Ireland.
The current cycle, Prix Pictet Human, presents the work of twelve outstanding photographers shortlisted for the award. Each explores our shared humanity and the complexities of our interactions with the world. Their portfolios span documentary, portraiture, landscape, and studies of light and process, addressing themes such as Indigenous rights, conflict, childhood, economic collapse, gang violence, migration, and environmental impact.
Through diverse perspectives, the exhibition examines our role as stewards of the planet, reinforcing Prix Pictet’s mission to raise awareness of global sustainability issues. Now in its fifteenth year, the award continues to spark dialogue on the urgent challenges facing our world.
Photo Museum Ireland
1st March - 20th April, 2025
Meeting House Square
Temple Bar
Dublin, D02 X406
Gerard Byrne
The Struggle With the Angel
photography by
Gerard Byrne
The Struggle With the Angel presents a suite of selenium-toned silver gelatin photographs, each hand-printed by Byrne in a darkroom built solely for this project. His images capture a vast range of subjects: pyramids in Mexico, a corrugated shed roof in Broadstone, Palestinian murals, the US Air Force, prone artists, marble nudes, graveyards, St. Francis, Gandhi, sons, mothers, friends, strangers. The accumulated references are broad and layered.
While diverse in motif, the central question for Byrne is how photographs connect worlds. His project embraces the limitations of his Mamiya 7 camera—held together by rubber bands—the constraints of film, and the impermanence of his darkroom. No computer, phone, AI software, or Instagram post plays a role in creating these images. The work embodies a recurring theme in Byrne’s practice: exploring moments of cultural and technological bifurcation—the instant an idea splits into two paths, one ultimately abandoned. His work revisits those lost possibilities, reflecting on their relevance in today’s context.
Kerlin Gallery
1st March - 5th April, 2025
Anne’s Lane
South Anne Street
Dublin D02 A028
The Angelic Conversation directed by Derek Jarman.
Living Canvas at IMMA
Outdoor Screenings
This exhibition showcases 130 works from the exceptional photography collection donated to IMMA by Dr. David Kronn, reflecting his nearly 30-year commitment to building a diverse and significant collection.
Photography has been a lifelong fascination for Irish-born, US-based Dr. Kronn, a medical genetics specialist drawn to the scientific processes of the medium. His collection spans various photographic forms, from 19th-century daguerreotypes and albumen prints to Karl Blossfeldt’s 1920s microphotography and Adam Fuss’s 1980s pinhole images.
The collection explores themes such as abstracted landscapes, seascapes, and iconic portraiture. Highlights include August Sander’s 1931 image of Heinrich Hoerle, Annie Leibovitz’s 1997 portrait of Louise Bourgeois, and Herb Ritts’s 1986 photograph of Madonna. Featured Irish artists include Alice Maher, Richard Mosse, and Amelia Stein, alongside international photographers like Harry Callahan, who worked in Ireland in the 1970s.
Currently, no Irish museum houses a major international photography collection. Dr. Kronn’s pledge to make IMMA the future home of his now 1,000-piece collection will establish the museum as a leading centre for research and a significant force in the field.
IMMA
Derek Jarman, The Angelic Conversation, 1985: 20th Jan - 3rd Feb, 2025
RDS Visual Art Awards, RDS in partnership with IMMA: 4th - 17th Feb, 2025
Royal Hospital, Military Road
Dublin 8, D08 FW31
Rich Gilligan
The First Draft
photography by
Rich Gilligan
The First Draft is an artistic homecoming, bringing internationally influenced work back to the roots of Rich Gilligan’s creative journey. This contemplative exhibition delves into themes of belonging, identity, and coming of age in suburbia. Revisiting early projects created around Blanchardstown, the artist presents non-sequential vignettes that explore the complex relationship between people and the places that shape them. Through still and moving image installations, visitors are immersed in subcultural life and transient moments of self-discovery, inviting reflections on how our environments influence identity.
Curated by Linda Shevlin, the exhibition showcases the artist’s evolution through ‘expanded photography’—an innovative approach pushing the limits of traditional image-making. These experimental, site-specific interventions challenge conventional storytelling, encouraging viewers to rethink photography’s role as a medium.
This celebration of Blanchardstown and its broader significance offers a dialogue between past and present, resonating across generations and geographies. Alongside the exhibition, an outreach project for young people explores themes of identity, complemented by a programme of curated talks, performances, and film screenings.
The Blanchardstown Centre
19ht February – 3rd May, 2025
Blanchardstown
Dublin, D15 RYX6
Adrian O’Carroll
All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun
curated by
Paul Hallahan and Lee Welch
All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun delves into the nuanced tensions between dualities shaping art and life. Drawing inspiration from Flann O’Brien’s writing—where themes such as rural versus urban, reality versus imagination, and seriousness versus humour are interwoven—the exhibition presents a diverse group of artists who uniquely engage with these contrasts.
Featuring painting, sculpture, installation, and video, the artworks explore how dualities coexist and often depend on one another. Nina Canell and Genieve Figgis challenge perceptions of the tangible and the imagined, while Eva Rothschild and Aleana Egan examine the delicate balance between solidity and fragility, reflecting the precariousness of existence. Samir Mahmood and Mairead O’hEocha contribute layered perspectives: Mahmood’s work addresses themes of identity, migration, and spirituality through cultural and religious lenses, while O’hEocha’s reinterpretation of landscapes bridges the familiar and the estranged.
This exhibition is not merely a presentation of oppositions but a thoughtful meditation on their interconnectedness. All Flowers in Time Bend Towards the Sun invites audiences to reflect on the complexities of existence, illustrating how contrasts are not strictly oppositional but deeply intertwined, like flowers bending toward the sun.
The Coach House Gallery
Feb 14th - May 11th ,2025
Dublin Castle
Dame Street
Dublin 2
Charlie Mallon in the fields by Yvette Monahan
The Clean Blue of Linen
photography by
Yvette Monahan
"The Clean Blue of Linen" is a photography project by Yvette Monahan, documenting the role of chemical-free flax farming at Mallon Farm in County Tyrone. Commissioned by We Feed The UK and exhibited at Belfast Exposed, the project is part of a national campaign to raise awareness about climate change, wildlife recovery, and social justice through storytelling.
At the heart of the project is Mallon Farm, where flax farmers Helen Keys and Charlie Mallon are reviving flax farming as part of a sustainable agricultural model. Their work is breathing new life into Northern Ireland's linen heritage while rejuvenating the land, soil, waterways, and wildlife. Their approach strengthens resilience in Northern Ireland's food and farming systems.
Yvette reflects: “The most vital lesson from this project has been the undeniable power of personal passion in creating change. Helen and Charlie have transformed the land from a dairy farm into a biodiverse flax, food, and wildlife ecosystem. They have inspired a new generation of artists, designers, and makers and instilled in them a deep appreciation for flax as a natural resource, giving us hope for a sustainable future.”
Accompanying the images is "The Opposite of Apocalypse," a poem by Irish writer Abby Oliveira, celebrating flax farming’s potential to unite communities and reshape the future of farming.
The project underscores the importance of diverse crop rotation and farming practices in building resilience against climate change.
Belfast Exposed Photography / Archive Gallery
6th February, 2024 - 22nd March, 2025
Exhibition launch with live poetry by renowned Irish writer Abby Oliveira - Thursday 6 February
Panel discussion - Saturday 8 February, 2pm
Live Action Linen / interactive NI Science Festival event - Friday 14 February, 10am & 2pm
Donegall Street
Belfast BT1 2FF
Erris by Amelia Stein
BogSkin
curated by
Patrick T Murphy
The RHA invites audiences to immerse themselves in an evocative exploration of Ireland’s boglands through this photographic exhibition, beginning with works from the 1970s by renowned artists Camille Souter, Barrie Cooke, Veronica Bolay, and Sean McSweeney. These artists capture the poetic essence of the bogs, from the misted blankets of Wicklow to the deep-standing peatlands of the midlands, revealing their muted colors, shifting light, and hauntingly unique vistas.
The bog’s layers of ritual and mythology are unveiled through the works of Hughie O’Donoghue, Nigel Rolfe, and Patrick Hough, who span media from painting to performance and film. Their pieces reflect on the bog as a preserver of memory and myth, touching on the ancient sacrifices and elemental mysteries held within its depths.
Labor and industry also find expression here. Amelia Stein’s stark black-and-white photographs evoke the tactile marks of cutting and stacking turf, while Shane Hynan documents the now-quiet industrial landscapes of milling and transport. Architect Tom De Paor recalls the ingenuity of the briquette house, a structure steeped in history and function.
The exhibition crescendos with reflections on the bog’s ecological role, its power to heal as a re-wilded carbon sink. Fiona McDonald, Catriona Leahy, and Siobhan McDonald present haunting installations that speak to renewal, resilience, and the life cycles of these ancient landscapes
The Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts
31st January - 20 April, 2025
15 Ely Place
Dublin
D02 A213
Bridget Leahy by Deirdre Brennan
Listening for Bridget
photography by
Deirdre Brennan
After the successful launch of photographer Deirdre Brennan’s Looking for Brigid photography project, Brigit: Dublin City Celebrating Women is excited to return with the second chapter of this powerful series. Listening for Brigid invites you to explore the voices and stories behind the Bridgets captured in Brennan’s lens—women of all ages, backgrounds, and spellings of the name, from Ireland and abroad.
Visitors will be able to listen to the diverse and riveting histories of these Bridgets in Gallery 18 in the Hugh Lane Gallery or online —each with her own unique journey, yet all connected by the enduring legacy of the name. Through personal stories, reflections, and the exhibition of photographs, we will explore the lives of these women and the myriad ways they embody the spirit of Brigid.
This piece is created by award-winning photographer Deirdre Brennan and edited by sound engineer Barry Connolly.
Hugh Lane Gallery
31st January – 2nd February, 2025
Charlemont House
Parnell Square North
Dublin 1, D01 F2X9
Rest by Leanne McDonagh, 2011
Bafushia
curated by
Séamus Nolan
Bafushia is an exhibition showcasing contemporary artists with Traveller heritage, offering insight into Irish Traveller life from their perspective. The Hugh Lane Gallery is proud to present this exhibition, celebrating the community’s resilience and creativity.
The term "Bafushia" was found in a Jack B. Yeats sketchbook near Telling the Cards (1898, NGI). In collaboration with Traveller participants, it was interpreted as meaning "foretelling", symbolizing imagination and the future.
Travellers selected artworks from the Hugh Lane collection to be displayed alongside contemporary pieces, guided by art educator Adam Stoneman with Michael Collins, Paddy Collins, Ann Maguire, and Mags O'Sullivan. These workshops fostered a Traveller-centered perspective on the gallery’s collection.
Irish Travellers, a recognized ethnic minority, have a rich history of traditions, language, and nomadic culture. While facing racism and marginalization, their strong creative traditions remain central to their identity.
Curated by Séamus Nolan in collaboration with Hugh Lane Gallery and Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre, Bafushia is made possible by the dedication of the exhibiting artists, Jessica O'Donnell, Caoimhe McCabe, and the workshop leaders.
Hugh Lane Gallery
29th January – 27th April 2025
Parnell Square
Dublin 1, D01F2X9
Aftermath of Bog Fire #1 from the miniseries ‘Beal’ by Shane Hynan, 2020
Periodical Review 14 A Language to Shout In
Periodical Review (2011–ongoing) is a long-running curatorial project that revisits and examines contemporary art practices in Ireland. Acting as a space for critical reflection and collaboration, each edition aims to foster new readings, crossovers, and debates within the art community. Instead of a conventional group exhibition, the project transforms the gallery into a journal-like space, presenting artworks in dialogue to encourage conversations within the field.
For each iteration, PP/S invites two peers—curators, artists, writers, or educators—to nominate significant artworks, exhibitions, or projects they encountered over the past year. Through this editorial process, the exhibition captures a range of subjective perspectives, shaped by personal, geographical, political, or institutional contexts. While curatorial unity isn’t a goal, thematic threads often emerge organically.
By highlighting artist-led initiatives, independent projects, commercial galleries, museum exhibitions, performances, and publications, Periodical Review offers an expansive view of Ireland’s visual art landscape. It creates a platform for dialogue, critical reflection, and greater engagement with contemporary practices, providing an accessible survey for a broader audience.
The exhibition is accompanied by texts from curators and an essay commissioned with Paper Visual Art Journal. This collaboration enriches discourse while building a lasting record of Ireland’s contemporary art scene.
Pallas Projects / Studios
7th December 2024 – 25th January 2025
115–117 The Coombe
Dublin 8, D08 A970