Peckham 24, the acclaimed photography festival established a decade ago from the south London artistic underground, is marking its tenth anniversary with an ambitious exploration of time’s role in influencing contemporary visual culture. Founded by artist and curator Jo Dennis and Vivienne Gamble as a 24-hour temporary event intended to champion rising voices, the festival has developed into a key venue for new voices in photography. This year’s landmark year, titled The Eras Edition, occurs 15–17 May across Copeland Park and the Bussey Building in London, presenting a curated selection of projects that examine time’s complex character—its intangibility yet omnipresence, its ability to nurture development and trigger deterioration.
From Pop-Up Foundations to Proven Service
When Jo Dennis and Vivienne Gamble created Peckham 24 ten years ago, they envisioned something ambitious yet understated: a round-the-clock temporary festival that would illuminate emerging talent within south London’s dynamic creative landscape. Operating on the fringe of Photo London, the opening edition assembled young photographers and self-run galleries in an unconventional format that matched the pioneering ethos of the work on display. This resourceful, ground-up method proved surprisingly successful, positioning the festival as a vital incubator for photographers in the early phases of their professional journeys.
What began as a one-off experimental venture has evolved into an recognised institution on the contemporary photography calendar, reflection of the curatorial direction and community engagement that Dennis and Gamble fostered from the outset. The festival’s evolution demonstrates broader shifts within photography itself—from the rise of digital practices to the growing importance of conceptual and socially engaged work. Today, Peckham 24 earns recognition from institutions, collectors and fellow practitioners, yet it has maintained the scrappy, inclusive ethos that marked its inception, continuing to prioritise up-and-coming artists and alternative viewpoints.
- Started as 24-hour pop-up on Photo London’s periphery in south-west London
- Founded by curators Vivienne Gamble and Jo Dennis to champion new talent
- Evolved from experimental one-off into recognised annual festival platform
- Maintains grassroots principles whilst earning institutional recognition and respect
Time as Thematic Element: The 10th Commemorative Perspective
For its significant tenth edition, Peckham 24 has selected time itself as the thematic anchor—a concept both deceptively simple and deeply complex. Time remains intangible yet unavoidable, an illusion that simultaneously governs our existence. It at once facilitates growth whilst bringing about decay, produces memory yet wipes it away. By positioning time as the primary lens through which to explore contemporary photography, the festival invites artists and audiences alike to question how visual culture engages with temporality in an era of accelerated change, digital compression and historical rupture. This conceptual framework proves exceptionally generative, creating pathways for photographers practising across documentary, conceptual and experimental registers.
The curatorial approach reflects a evolution in Peckham 24’s vision. Rather than just displaying emerging talent—though this continues vital—the festival now pursues more substantive engagement with photography’s changing possibilities and focuses. Time, as a thematic concern and structural consideration, allows the selected projects to bridge disciplinary boundaries: from individual records and social documentation to scientific data visualisation and archival inquiry. This conceptual unity gives the anniversary edition critical substance whilst recognising photography’s exceptional flexibility as a medium equipped to record, interrogating and reimagining our engagement with temporal experience.
Exploring Time-Related Dimensions
The projects chosen for The Eras Edition showcase striking conceptual and formal diversity in their engagement with time. Vinca Petersen’s Hulala traces four years transformation within a rural Scottish community, combining photographs with ephemeral personal materials to explore how time transforms collective life. Max Ferguson’s The Tower Block records the final chapter of London College of Communication’s landmark Elephant and Castle building before its 2027 relocation, preserving organisational heritage through the eyes of students leaving. These works share an focus on layering of time—how past, present, and future coexist within individual images or archival sequences.
Beyond established documentary approaches, other initiatives push photography’s temporal possibilities in more exploratory directions. Julie F Hill’s Chasms series transforms raw data from space telescopes using algorithmic functions, translating scientific information into visual forms that compress vast cosmic timescales into aesthetic experience. Kristina Yenza’s Younist examines how wartime in Ukraine becomes embedded in everyday life, probing temporal rupture through fragments and gestures. These varied approaches—archival, observational, scientific, conceptual—collectively demonstrate how contemporary photographers continue expanding the medium’s potential for depicting, interrogate and make meaning from time’s passage.
Diverse Voices: 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 Different Regions
Vinca Petersen’s Hulala represents a demonstration of prolonged engagement and psychological richness. Drawing on three decades of practice in photography, Petersen has revisited the Scottish isle of Skye to record deep transformations within its farming communities. Her work weaves together photographs, text and personal ephemera to produce a sensory-rich depiction of how temporal change reshapes communal sense of self. The exhibition navigates the delicate tensions between self-sufficiency and interconnection, heritage and contemporary practice, illustrating how fragility and resilience exist together within tight-knit communities. Petersen’s lyrical sensibility elevates ordinary instances into reflections about community and transformation.
Kristina Yenza’s Younist delivers a contrasting yet equally study of how time operates under extreme duress. Rather than depicting the observable destruction of warfare, Yenza’s documentary project documents the nuanced emotional and interpersonal effects of conflict on Ukrainian youth. Through fragmented portraits and carefully observed details, she demonstrates how conflict integrates with the fabric of daily existence—shaping gestures, relationships and future aspirations. The work exhibits remarkable sensitivity in depicting a generation that persists, creates and connects despite profound instability, confirming photography’s capacity to celebrate endurance and human bonds amidst temporal upheaval.
Transformative Influence on Current Photography
Over the last ten years, Peckham 24 has fundamentally reshaped the nature of modern photographic practice in Britain. What began as an ambitious pop-up festival running 24 hours has grown into a vital platform for emerging artists, curators and galleries active within the south London art world. Founded by artist and curator duo Jo Dennis and Vivienne Gamble, the festival’s core vision—to highlight emerging artists and question traditional exhibition approaches—has held firm whilst adjusting to encompass the expanding scope of photography. The festival’s sustained existence reflects its importance; in an time of digital saturation and algorithmic curation, Peckham 24 continues to champion purposeful, reflective engagement with the photograph.
The festival’s tenth anniversary iteration, themed “The Eras,” demonstrates how photography operates as a temporal medium equipped to examining time itself. By assembling diverse artistic practices—from intimate documentary photography to algorithmic space imagery—Peckham 24 affirms photography’s capacity to explore profound philosophical questions. The curatorial framework encourages audiences to reflect on how photographs mediate memory, document change and bear witness to historical moments. This thematic strategy raises the festival beyond mere commercial enterprise, 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 south London’s artistic community
- Established space for photographers exploring time, memory and contemporary social issues
- Demonstrates the evolving significance of photography in documenting individual and shared change
- Showcases varied approaches from documentary to algorithmic and scientific visualisation
- Affirms critical importance of intentional curation amid digital saturation and technological change
Moving Forward: The Festival’s Lasting Impact
As Peckham 24 enters its second decade, the festival’s trajectory suggests a growing dedication to photography as a analytical tool through which contemporary experience can be examined and understood. The ten-year milestone’s thematic focus on time—its fluidity, its destructiveness, its creative capacity—reflects a sophistication of curatorial vision. Rather than simply celebrating photography’s technological advances, the festival has positioned itself as a venue for examining what photographs reveal about our contemporary moment. This philosophical approach ensures that Peckham 24 remains relevant not merely as a platform for new artists, but as a essential cultural force equipped to generate meaningful dialogue around pressing contemporary concerns.
The festival’s commitment to platforming varied photographic approaches—from Vinca Petersen’s close-knit community record on Skye to Julie F Hill’s systematic examination of cosmic data—illustrates an expansive outlook of what photography can include. By establishing platforms for both traditional documentary approaches and innovative scientific imagery, Peckham 24 acknowledges photography’s expanding formal vocabulary whilst honouring its core dedication to bearing witness. As the cultural landscape continues to shift, the festival’s readiness to adapt whilst preserving its fundamental principles indicates a sustainable model for supporting emerging photographers and promoting meaningful discussion with the medium.