An entire
museum dedicated
to Photography

For the full month of July, come and celebrate with us a unique programme showcasing works of local and international contemporary artists working with photography, right in the city centre at The Printworks, Dublin Castle.

Beginning on 4th July and running until 28th July, this pop-up space we called the Museum of Contemporary Photography of Ireland will be launched as part of PhotoIreland Festival 2019 10th anniversary festivities.

An incredible 2000m² space awaits you, hosting an amazing line-up; and despite its temporary presence, a myriad of events as well as a rich educational programme will take place during this time.

The museum will open with four exhibitions: French-Lebanese photographer and filmmaker Nadim Asfar, presented by Independent Dutch curator Hester Keijser; New Irish Works, with the latest projects by Aisling McCoy, Cian Burke, Dorje de Burgh, George Voronov, Jamin Keogh, Phelim Hoey, Robert Ellis, Róisín White, Sarah Flynn, and Zoe Hamill; co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme, the Parallel Platform will feature works by Cihad Caner, Dries Lips, Róisín White, and Jessica Wolfelsperger, curated by Seda Yildiz; the Tokyo International Photography Competition will showcase its 2019 finalists.

The educational programme commences with the symposium ‘Photography and the Museum: Contradictory Histories and Contemporary Perspectives’. Organised in collaboration with the research group Photography/Archives/Ireland, the symposium will host a day of conversations with Photo-Historian Eléonore Challine, Alison Nordström (Senior Curator of Photographs at George Eastman House, 2004-2013), and Marco De Mutiis, currently digital curator for the Fotomuseum Winterthur.

Visitors can expect other events such as guided tours, artists and curatorial talks, and more, like artist led workshops such as ‘Magic Insta Material’, a workshop on Selfies and Portraits for teens, with Berlin based artist Anna Ehrenstein.

Opening a pop-up bookshop for the month, The Library Project will bring to the museum selected publications on visual culture and critical thinking, with Art books, photobooks, magazines, and fanzines, from local and international publishers.

The Book & Magazine Fair returns to the PhotoIreland Festival programme, first presented in 2011, bringing you the latest photobooks from a large selection of artists and publishers. Part of the PhotoIreland Foundation Collection, composed of over 2000 publications, goes on display with highlights from its funds, alongside books from the Fotobook Festival Kassel and the Photobook Week Aarhus awards.

The space will present itself as an established museum, although without a collection per se, presenting, aside from the main exhibitions, photographic works from various public collections instead as its own, highlighting the fact that many outstanding photographic artworks are currently kept in storage in several public holdings in Ireland, such as the Arts Council, OPW, IMMA, and others. After all, these are indeed the property of all Irish citizens.

Adding to these, visitors will enjoy exciting items from private collectors based on the island, underlining their important role in supporting the practice of this discipline today and preserving it for the future.

The museum has been conceived as a welcoming space where to enjoy an engagement with the Arts, and where to discover the practice of emerging artists working around Photography. It also invites everyone into an open discussion around the need for a Museum of Contemporary Photography of Ireland.

Developed by the PhotoIreland Foundation, the event is kindly supported by The Office of Public Works, the Arts Council of Ireland, the Dublin City Council Arts Office and Events Section, the Embassy of France in Dublin, the Alliance Française, Hang Tough framing, and Inspirational Arts.

The Parallel Platform exhibition is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union in collaboration with our European partners, Procur.arte, Robert Capa Contemporary Center, Le Château d’Eau, Fondazione Fotografia Modena, Centro Artes José de Guimarães – A Oficina, Format International Photography Festival – Derby Quad, FotoFestiwal – Foundation of Visual Education, Galleri Image, ISSP, Katalog – Journal of Photography & Video, Landskrona Foto, Kaunas Photography Gallery, UGM – Maribor Art Gallery, The Finnish Museum of Photography, Organ Vida, and YET Magazine.

Towards a Museum for Visual Culture & Critical Thinking

In Autumn 2017, PhotoIreland Foundation started specific research around Photography in Ireland, a project part of the Critical Academy. The aim of the research is to publicly define, evaluate, and reflect on the current situation of the practice and all the elements that affect it, sharing results and recommendations along the way, and proposing benchmarked improvements.

The Museum of Contemporary Photography of Ireland is part of that practice based research, specifically aiming to create the ideal prototype space to actively engage with Visual Culture and Critical Thinking today.

This first iteration of the Museum project will launch on Thursday 4th July at The Printworks in Dublin Castle, as a temporary event for the month of July, with the kind support of The Office of Public Works (OPW). However, over the next years, the museum will present an evolving model appearing in a variety of locations, openly investigating experimental and critical propositions in aspects relating to museology, curation, cultural policy and Arts management.

The research sets an important departure towards a new arena where Art and cultural practices and their socio-political context can be both enjoyed and examined in a richly participatory way, with the use of contemporary methodologies.