Irish photobooks feature 

In a first for Aotearoa, Irish photobooks will feature in a special exhibition at Photospace Gallery, curated by the founder of PhotoIreland, Ángel Luis González Fernández. The exhibition will showcase the diversity of practices and backgrounds in photographic practices in Ireland today.There is an opening on Thursday 8 August at 1pm. On Sunday 11 August Ángel will be giving a talk related to the exhibition.

Don’t miss this opportunity to discover many unique, out of print, and rarely seen publications, tracing the rapid evolution of the Irish photobook in the past decade and get to know the many artistic processes behind them.

At the bookfair on Saturday 10 August at Te Papa, you’ll have the opportunity to buy a selection of Irish publications, from photobooks to zines, critical books and more, including many of PhotoIreland’s own publications, such as OVER Journal, TLP Editions, and others.

We gratefully acknowledge Culture Ireland for its support of these events.

As well as showcasing Irish photobooks, Ángel will also be holding one-on-one Critical Practice Reviews on Friday 9 August. These sessions are now fully booked.

Background

The Irish photobook has had great international successes, most noticeably with Ciarán Óg Arnold’s I Went to the Worst of Bars, that won the MACK Books First Book Award in 2015; Jan McCullough’s Home Instruction Manual, winner of the Kassel Fotobookfestival Dummy Award 2016; and Eamonn Doyle’s ambitious books i (praised first by Martin Parr), ON and End. But there are many other great books to praise.

In presenting a selection of contemporary and momentous Irish photobooks from the PhotoIreland Collection, PhotoIreland intends to share a reflection on the wealth of practices and approaches demonstrated.

The PhotoIreland collection is an on-going repository with thousands of items from all over the world in continuous expansion with new materials. It is currently housed at The Library Project, Dublin, as a resource library open to the public.

PhotoIreland has been collecting the work of artists in print in its many forms ever since its inception in 2010.

About Ángel

Ángel Luis González Fernández is a designer, artist, and curator supporting engaging visual arts practices.

His work is seen through PhotoIreland, which he founded in 2010 to stimulate a critical dialogue on photography. He devises curatorial projects placing conversations in public around visual culture and critical thinking. These include: events such as the PhotoIreland Festival and Halftone Print Fair; a cultural hub, The Library Project: Ireland’s Art bookshop, host to a unique resource library of photobooks and an arts programme; publishing projects that distribute inexpensive access to local practices and research projects. He works collaboratively with a growing network of organisations, noticeably through ambitious Creative Europe partnerships.

During the Summer 2020 lockdown he launched the critical publication OVER Journal, now distributed globally. He received the Arts Council of Ireland’s Visual Arts Bursary to deepen research on the broad historical and specific artistic context of photography in Ireland, to curate an ambitious survey exhibition in PhotoIreland Festival 2022 and publish a series of publications.