For the full month of July 2023, visitors enjoyed four ambitious exhibitions part of PhotoIreland Festival 2023, representing a variety of practices and concerns by 17 artists, with newly commissioned works and most works presented for the first time in Ireland.

PhotoIreland Festival 2023 launches at 6pm Friday 30th July, returning to The Printworks in Dublin Castle, where we first launched our public-facing research project, the Museum of Contemporary Photography of Ireland, back in 2019.

The interlinked and collaboratively conceived two main exhibitions are organised by international curators Catherine E. McKinley and Renée Mussai, with artists Aida Silvestri, Atong Atem, Bernice Mulenga, Frida Orupabo, Heather Agyepong, Hélène Amouzou, Lola Flash, Mónica de Miranda, Phoebe Boswell, Sethembile Mzesane, Silvia Rosi, and Zanele Muholi.

Artist Ethel-Ruth Tawe delves into Ben Krewinkel’s Africa in the Photobook and Rubén H. Bermúdez presents a solo show around his book And you, why are you black?

This edition sees the return of the festival’s summer art book fair, first launched in July 2011, now renamed and rebranded as Tsundoku, and the launch of a new mentorship programme entitled RELAY, featuring artists E the Artist (Daranijoh Sanni), Samantha Brown, and Tobi Balogun, mentored by Alice Rekab.

The Printworks at Dublin Castle will host four main exhibitions:

• Catherine E. McKinley curates newly commissioned, photography-based multi-media work by artist Atong Atem. Dust explores the relationship of Dinka women who act as mediums and custodians to the earth, to the rupturing history of Christianity and colonialism.
• A diverse constituency of creative practitioners working in photography and lens-based media including Aida Silvestri, Heather Agyepong, Hélène Amouzou, Lola Flash, Mónica de Miranda, Phoebe Boswell, Sethembile Msezane, Silvia Rosi, Zanele Muholi, and Frida Orupabo, the latter presented in collaboration with The McKinley Collection, are brought together in a group show titled I See the Face of Things to Come by guest curator Renée Mussai. The thematic exhibition centres around a fluid interpretation of (self) portraiture—as repertoire, as chorus and soliloquy, as moving image, as vision, as breath, as vessel, as archive, as embodiment, as justice, as activism, as community—showcasing the interdisciplinary work of artists whose evocative praxis amplifies notions of self and other through the prism of past, present and future tenses.
• Artist Ethel-Ruth Tawe presents work in response to Ben Krewinkel historic and contemporary photobook archive Africa in the Photobook.

In addition, The Library Project will be host to a solo exhibition And you, why are you black? by artist Rubén H. Bermúdez, providing the most extensive presentation of his work. Starting from an investigation into the origins of black slavery in Spain, the author constructs an autobiographical tale.

See below the free events taking place the first week of PhotoIreland Festival. We look forward to seeing you there!

PROGRAMME 30th JUNE-23th JULY 2023

Exhibitions

The Library Project

And you, why are you black?
Rubén H. Bermúdez

Events

Full details at 2023.photoireland.org

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