Peckham 24, the acclaimed photography festival born a ten years ago from the south London artistic underground, is marking its 10th anniversary with an extensive exploration of time’s role in shaping contemporary visual culture. Founded by artist and curator Jo Dennis and Vivienne Gamble as a 24-hour pop-up event intended to champion rising voices, the festival has developed into a essential showcase for emerging practitioners in photography. This year’s milestone edition, titled The Eras Edition, takes place 15–17 May across Copeland Park and the Bussey Building in London, presenting a thoughtfully selected range of projects that examine time’s complex character—its abstract quality yet pervasive existence, its power to encourage flourishing and cause decline.
From Initial Beginnings to Established Platform
When Jo Dennis and Vivienne Gamble launched Peckham 24 ten years ago, they envisioned something modest yet ambitious: a round-the-clock temporary festival that would showcase new creative voices within south London’s vibrant artistic ecosystem. Operating on the fringe of Photo London, the inaugural event united emerging photographers and artist-led spaces in a non-traditional approach that reflected the innovative character of the work on display. This scrappy, grassroots approach proved notably impactful, establishing the festival as a vital incubator for photographers at the beginning of their career paths.
What emerged as a one-off experimental venture has developed into an permanent feature on the contemporary photography calendar, testament to the curatorial vision and community involvement that Dennis and Gamble nurtured from the start. The festival’s evolution demonstrates wider changes within photography itself—from the emergence of digital practices to the increasing prominence of conceptual and socially engaged work. Today, Peckham 24 commands respect from galleries, collectors and industry peers, yet it has maintained the grassroots, welcoming spirit that characterised its beginnings, continuing to prioritise emerging voices and non-traditional approaches.
- Started as temporary 24-hour venue on Photo London’s periphery in south-west London
- Founded by curators Vivienne Gamble and Jo Dennis to champion new talent
- Evolved from experimental single event into established annual festival platform
- Maintains grassroots ethos whilst gaining institutional recognition and respect
Time as Creative Focus: The 10th Anniversary Vision
For its noteworthy tenth edition, Peckham 24 has selected time itself as the central theme—a concept that is deceptively simple and profoundly complex. Time stays intangible yet unavoidable, an illusion that paradoxically governs our existence. It concurrently enables growth whilst causing decay, generates memory yet wipes it away. By positioning time as the central lens through which to examine contemporary photography, the festival encourages artists and audiences alike to question how visual culture contends with temporality in an era of rapid change, digital compression and historical rupture. This thematic framework proves exceptionally generative, creating pathways for photographers working across documentary, conceptual and experimental registers.
The curatorial approach reflects a development in Peckham 24’s vision. Rather than merely presenting emerging talent—though this continues vital—the festival now engages in richer intellectual exchange with photography’s evolving capacities and concerns. Time, as both a conceptual element and structural consideration, allows the selected projects to speak across disciplinary boundaries: from individual records and social documentation to scientific visualisation and historical research. This conceptual unity gives the anniversary edition conceptual depth whilst honouring photography’s exceptional flexibility as a medium capable of capturing, questioning and reframing our connection to temporal experience.
Analysing Temporal Frameworks
The projects chosen for The Eras Edition showcase striking formal and conceptual diversity in their engagement with time. Vinca Petersen’s Hulala documents four years’ transformation within a rural Scottish community, merging photographs with ephemeral personal materials to explore how time reshapes shared community life. Max Ferguson’s The Tower Block documents the closing chapter of London College of Communication’s landmark Elephant and Castle building before its 2027 relocation, preserving organisational heritage through the perspective of students leaving. These works demonstrate an attention to layering of time—how past, present and future exist together within individual images or archival sequences.
Beyond conventional documentary approaches, other works push photography’s temporal possibilities in more innovative directions. Julie F Hill’s Chasms series transforms raw data from space telescopes using mathematical processes, converting scientific information into visual forms that compress vast cosmic timescales into sensory engagement. Kristina Yenza’s Younist examines how wartime in Ukraine settles into everyday life, exploring temporal rupture through fragmented elements. These diverse methodologies—archival, observational, scientific, conceptual—together reveal how contemporary photographers continue expanding the medium’s potential for depicting, interrogate and construct understanding of time’s passage.
Multiple Viewpoints: Showcased Creators and Their Accounts
| Artist | Project Focus |
|---|---|
| Vinca Petersen | Hulala – Rural Scottish community transformation and collective living |
| Max Ferguson | The Tower Block – London College of Communication’s final era before relocation |
| Kristina Yenza | Younist – Ukrainian youth navigating life during wartime |
| Julie F Hill | Chasms – Space telescope data visualised through algorithmic processing |
| Hashim Nasr | On War – Exploration of conflict and its temporal dimensions |
Individual Data Across Various Locations
Vinca Petersen’s Hulala stands as a demonstration of sustained observation and emotional depth. Building upon three decades of photographic work, Petersen has returned to the Scottish isle of Skye to document significant changes within its countryside communities. Her work intertwines images, text and personal objects to fashion a sensory-rich depiction of how time reshapes shared identity. The exhibition explores the subtle conflicts between self-sufficiency and interconnection, heritage and contemporary practice, illustrating how fragility and resilience exist together within close-knit groups. Petersen’s artistic methodology elevates mundane occurrences into contemplations of place and temporal shift.
Kristina Yenza’s Younist presents a strikingly intimate exploration of how time operates during severe hardship. Rather than depicting the visible devastation of warfare, Yenza’s documentary project documents the subtle psychological and relational effects of conflict on Ukrainian youth. Through fragmented portraits and carefully observed details, she demonstrates how war becomes woven into the fabric of daily existence—influencing movements, bonds and tomorrow’s hopes. The work shows striking compassion in depicting a generation that persists, creates and connects despite profound instability, affirming photography’s capacity to honour resilience and human connection amidst temporal upheaval.
Transformative Influence on Contemporary Photography
Over the previous ten years, Peckham 24 has significantly transformed the terrain of current photography in Britain. What started as an ambitious 24-hour pop-up festival has evolved into a vital platform for up-and-coming artists, curators and galleries working within the south London artistic ecosystem. Established by artist-curator partnership Jo Dennis and Vivienne Gamble, the festival’s original vision—to spotlight new talent and question traditional exhibition approaches—has stayed constant whilst adapting to reflect the expanding scope of photography. The festival’s longevity speaks to its relevance; in an age of digital saturation and algorithmic curation, Peckham 24 continues to champion intentional, thoughtful engagement with the photograph.
The festival’s tenth anniversary iteration, themed “The Eras,” demonstrates how photography functions as a temporal medium equipped to examining time itself. By bringing together diverse artistic practices—from intimate documentary photography to algorithmic space imagery—Peckham 24 confirms photography’s capacity to investigate profound philosophical questions. The curatorial approach encourages audiences to consider how photographs mediate memory, document change and bear witness to historical moments. This thematic strategy raises the festival beyond simple commercial venture, positioning it as a critical space where photographers grapple with urgent contemporary concerns including community, conflict, technological transformation and environmental legacy.
- Launched as temporary exhibition celebrating emerging talent within the south London art scene
- Established platform for photographers investigating time, memory and contemporary social issues
- Demonstrates photography’s evolving relevance in recording individual and shared change
- Showcases diverse practices from documentary to algorithmic and scientific visualisation
- Affirms vital significance of deliberate curatorial practice within digital saturation and technological change
Moving Forward: The Festival’s Continuing Legacy
As Peckham 24 enters its next ten years, the festival’s direction suggests a growing dedication to photography as a critical lens through which modern life can be examined and understood. The tenth anniversary edition’s thematic focus on time—its changeability, its corrosive nature, its creative capacity—reflects a sophistication of curatorial vision. Rather than simply celebrating photography’s technological advances, the festival has established itself as a space for interrogating what photographs disclose about our moment in history. This philosophical approach ensures that Peckham 24 stays significant not merely as a platform for new artists, but as a vital cultural institution capable of fostering meaningful dialogue around pressing contemporary concerns.
The festival’s commitment to platforming diverse photographic practices—from Vinca Petersen’s personal community chronicle on Skye to Julie F Hill’s algorithmic processing of cosmic data—illustrates an expansive outlook of what photography can include. By making room for both established documentary practices and innovative scientific imagery, Peckham 24 affirms photography’s evolving formal language whilst upholding its core dedication to bearing witness. As the creative sector continues to shift, the festival’s openness to change whilst preserving its essential values suggests a sustainable model for championing developing photographers and encouraging thoughtful dialogue with the medium.