Photo London, the UK capital’s premier photography fair, returns for its 11th edition with a striking new home at Olympia in Kensington this May. The esteemed exhibition will run from 13–17 May, featuring an varied selection of exhibitions covering intimate family narratives, wistful island photographs and challenging modern art. This year’s programme features both well-known galleries and exciting debuts, with a particular emphasis on overlooked areas through a new ‘Focus’ section showcasing galleries from Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe. From Catalan-Spanish photographers capturing Ibiza’s transformative 1970s to British artists examining the complexities of family bonds, Photo London’s 11th iteration promises to deliver the curatorial ambition and photographic storytelling that has made it an vital component in the global photography landscape.
A Fair Reconceived: Fresh Space, Contemporary Vision
Photo London’s relocation to Olympia marks a significant milestone for the fair, offering a new platform for its curatorial vision. The move to Kensington’s historic venue provides expanded gallery space and enhanced visitor engagement, allowing exhibitors to present their work with increased scope and ambition. This fresh location reflects the fair’s rising prominence within the global photography sector and its commitment to showcasing diverse artistic voices. The change of venue also indicates Photo London’s transformation from a conventional art fair into a hub for dedicated collectors, photographers and aficionados pursuing substantive engagement with contemporary and historical photographic practice.
The 11th edition’s programming reflects a deliberate shift towards inclusion. By establishing the ‘Focus’ section, Photo London actively champions galleries and artists from regions historically underrepresented in the mainstream art fair circuit. This curatorial strategy transcends geographical diversity to include thematic breadth, with shows spanning personal family narratives to rigorous explorations of identity and representation. The fair’s commitment to supporting both established institutions and emerging galleries creates a vibrant market where recognised masters appear next to bold emerging voices, fostering opportunities for unexpected artistic discoveries and meaningful dialogue across generations and cultures.
- Expanded Olympia venue facilitates increasingly ambitious gallery exhibitions and displays
- New ‘Focus’ section showcases galleries across Latin America and Central-Eastern Europe
- Programming combines established masters with contemporary emerging photographers
- Fair emphasises personal narratives combined with large-scale historical photographic projects
Reminiscence and Recollection: Recording Significant Moments
Ibiza’s Peak Period Examined From Two Perspectives
Agony and Ecstasy gallery makes its Photo London debut with a compelling presentation exploring Ibiza during one of its most transformative decades. Catalan-Spanish photographer Oriol Maspons and German photographer Walter Rudolph’s collaborative showcase documents the island across 1976 and 1985, a crucial period following Franco’s death but before the influx of British tourism that would significantly reshape the destination. Their photographs preserve a photographic chronicle of Ibiza’s artistic revival, chronicling the island’s evolution through personal, candid moments that expose the character of an era presently lost to commercial development and mass tourism.
The exhibition displays a visual sense of the past that goes beyond simple tourism photography, instead offering a social snapshot of Ibiza’s transition from comparative anonymity to global recognition. Rudolph’s The Montesol Hotel and Maspons’ Miss Ku at Privilege nightclub demonstrate the fair’s commitment to archival photography. These images serve as historical records, preserving the ambience, visual character and social dynamics of a pivotal period in Mediterranean history. The work resonates particularly with contemporary audiences seeking authentic documentation of places dramatically changed by globalisation and commercialisation.
Family Connections and Local Landscapes
Guest Editions, a Hackney-based gallery, makes its debut at Photo London with two powerful bodies of work investigating home, belonging and familial connection. Thomas Duffield’s series Poppy Promises charts a nine-year journey of reconnection with his father, after years of estrangement stemming from addiction. The project goes beyond conventional documentary photography to function as a meditation on forgiveness, patience and the possibility of rebuilding fractured relationships. Duffield’s intimate approach converts personal struggle into broader human story, inviting viewers to consider their own experiences of family breakdown and healing.
Laura McCluskey’s decade-long project on the Isle of Sheppey likewise examines the complexity of familial ties and geographical belonging. Located at 13 Acorn Street, the ancestral home of her paternal grandparents, McCluskey’s photographs investigate how family bonds simultaneously fray and endure. Her work illustrates how specific locations function as repositories for family memory and identity, with each image functioning as a tender investigation into heritage and continuity. Both artists utilise photography as a means of understanding the intricate emotional architectures that shape domestic life and personal history.
Global Perspectives: Extending International Presence
Photo London’s 11th edition marks a meaningful evolution in curatorial vision, with the fair unveiling ‘Focus’, a novel scheme designed to highlighting galleries and artists from underrepresented regions. This intentional broadening reflects the fair’s dedication to making more accessible the worldwide photography market, stepping away from traditional Western hubs to draw attention to new talent from South America and Eastern European regions. By providing exclusive display areas and exposure to these regions, Photo London positions itself as a genuinely global platform rather than just a domestically-oriented showcase, nurturing international exchange and questioning conventional hierarchies within the current art landscape.
- Flagship initiative launches, featuring galleries from Latin America and Central-Eastern Europe
- Ungallery presents Argentine artists examining contemporary social and political themes
- Belén Romero Gunset investigates lesbian identity through performance photography self-portraits
- Galeria Monopol displays Polish neo-avant garde artist Zygmunt Rytka’s critical work
- Daido Moriyama’s vintage Japanese prints highlight postwar photography’s lasting influence
South America and Eastern Europe Emerge as Key Players
Ungallery’s exhibition presents a constellation of artists operating throughout Argentina, engaging with subjects of identity, social structures and collective heritage. Among these practitioners, Belén Romero Gunset’s collection L Form offers photographic self-studies that openly address both historical and current stereotypes concerning lesbian representation. Via performative photographic methods, Gunset’s 2024 piece interrogates how identity is constructed, understood and shaped, offering spectators a compelling analysis of visual culture’s role in informing public perception and questioning established norms.
Galeria Monopol features work by Zygmunt Rytka, a Polish multimedia artist whose practice emerged from the vibrant neo-avant garde movements of the 1970s and the independent art scenes of the 1980s. Rytka’s photographs function as sharp critical commentaries on media and representation, representation and political realities, utilising conceptual precision and ironic strategies to examine structures of power. His inclusion highlights the substantial contributions of Eastern Europe to discourse on postwar art, frequently marginalised in mainstream narratives dominated by Western institutions and perspectives.
Masters and Movements: Photography’s Continuing Influence
Photo London’s 11th edition showcases the deep resonance of influential practitioners whose work has substantially transformed current artistic discourse. By combining traditional and modern practices, the fair demonstrates how photographic traditions continue to evolve and inspire contemporary artists of artists. The presence of established professionals in dialogue with emerging voices creates a compelling conversation between past and present, uncovering the threads that connect distinct periods, regions and creative approaches. This curatorial vision underscores photography’s unique capacity to record, examine and reshape our understanding of the world, while recognising the medium’s complex relationship with factuality, representation and memory.
The fair’s exhibition programme shows a deliberate commitment to celebrating photography’s global heritage outside Eurocentric narratives. From Spanish and German investigations of Ibiza’s groundbreaking 1980s to Polish neo-avant garde experimentation, and Japanese postwar innovation, Photo London positions these different methodologies as essential to comprehending photography’s progression. Such inclusive representation challenges institutional hierarchies and invites visitors to reassess established art historical frameworks. By honouring photographers who operated within different contexts and periods, the fair emphasises photography’s shared visual vocabulary whilst acknowledging the unique cultural viewpoints and aesthetic innovations each practitioner invested in their craft.
| Photographer | Notable Focus |
|---|---|
| Walter Rudolph | Ibiza’s cultural transformation during the 1970s and 1980s |
| Oriol Maspons | Spanish island life captured during post-Franco era |
| Zygmunt Rytka | Polish neo-avant garde and critical media commentary |
| Daido Moriyama | Postwar Japanese photography and street documentation |
Japanese Innovation and Street Photography
Akio Nagasawa Gallery’s exhibition of Daido Moriyama’s archival prints offers viewers an chance to interact directly with one of post-1945 photography’s most notable photographers. Moriyama’s characteristic style to street photography revolutionised how photographers approached immediacy, structure and the connection between camera and subject. His work reflects Japanese photography’s significant contributions in global visual culture, showing how local traditions have profoundly shaped global creative movements. Through carefully selected vintage prints, the gallery illuminates Moriyama’s continued significance on contemporary photographers who remain inspired from his fearless, unflinching portrayal of city existence and human condition.
Stories of Belonging and Identity
Photo London’s 11th instalment showcases intimate narratives that explore the intricacies of family, place and identity. Guest Editions, a Hackney-based gallery making its debut at the fair, offers two striking bodies of work that interrogate how we create significance through our connections and environments. These photographers employ the medium not merely to document, but to excavate emotional truths buried within intimate spaces and familial bonds. Their work resonates with viewers looking for sincere, emotionally engaging imagery that goes beyond surface-level depiction.
Thomas Duffield’s series Poppy Promises documents a nine-year endeavour of healing with his distant father, documenting the painstaking process of rebuilding trust undermined by addiction. Simultaneously, Laura McCluskey’s ten-year project on the Isle of Sheppey explores how family ties survive despite unavoidable tension and change. Both photographers utilise sustained, patient observation to demonstrate photography’s distinctive ability for intimate storytelling, converting individual struggle into shared human experiences that audiences recognise in their own experiences.
- Thomas Duffield examines paternal healing through a nine year long visual record project
- Laura McCluskey investigates familial connections and sense of place through her perspective on her family home
- Both photographers reveal the power of photography to reshape individual stories into shared comprehension