Photo London returned to Somerset House to mark its tenth anniversary with a special edition celebrating London and its rich traditions of photography, gathering the world’s leading galleries and artists to present the best of the craft and explore the medium’s future possibilities.
Under the stewardship of new director Sophie Parker, Photo London 2025 embraced an expansive definition of the medium that speaks to photography’s evolving place in contemporary art. “Photography can include sculpture, painting, performance, fabric, moving image, and even sound,” Parker explained, articulating a vision that sees the fair celebrating “photography as an art object in all its forms.” This philosophy permeated every corner of the venue, from traditional gallery presentations to experimental installations that challenged conventional boundaries.
The Photo London x Hahnemühle Student Award returned to the Fair for the third time. Working with UK universities offering photography degrees, the award highlights the most exciting early-career talent within the industry, bringing their portfolios to international attention. And the winner was…Bristol-based Billy Allen, studying at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), and often shooting his photographic work in Budapest, due to an exchange semester he undertook last year. He explained that his paper of choice within the sponsor’s digital fine art range was the Bamboo type, given its impressive texture that was ideal to illustrate his subjects.
The Discovery section is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading platforms for emerging photographers and galleries. Curated by the critic and author Charlotte Jansen, it featured more than twenty galleries including Venezuelan-born Lucia Pizzani whose photo-based works and sculptures tell stories about colonialism and nature through her use of charged materials such as pre-Hispanic tree bark paper. The east London-based Roman Road gallery presented Polina Piech, who graduated from the RCA this year, and works, like a painter, capturing the movement of natural environments.
It was refreshing, while walking through the labyrinthine recesses of the venue, to find little gems like the Music Photo Gallery showing classic images of Bob Dylan and John Lennon before heading to the Embankment East & West Galleries. There you encountered the special ‘London Lives’ exhibition curated by critic and author Francis Hodgson featuring a dazzling array of creative responses to the City by around 30 of its leading image makers including David Bailey, Hannah Starkey, Nadav Kander, Idris Khan, Mary McCartney, Mitra Tabrizian and Nick Turpin among others. Curator Francis Hodgson said: “For a few days in the spring of every year, Photo London has ruled over London from its great palace on the Thames. As we celebrate its tenth anniversary, we remember that is just the point. Its participants — photographers, publishers, galleries and the rest — come from all over the world and have turned their eyes on every part of it and all its goings-on. But it remains a London fair, anchored in its host city. So we thought for the anniversary we’d celebrate London and what people get up to there. London, like all the really great cities in the world, has something of everything, and people from everywhere. Call it a melting-pot if you want; but we simply call it ‘London Lives’. The more the merrier.”
The Fair’s Book Market championed the vibrant and diverse communities of independent publishers and this new space featured a broad selection of photography and arts publishing—from larger publications to zines, pamphlets, and other ephemera—with the aim of bringing diversity and innovation to the Photo London audience.
Another regular highlight was the daily Talks Programme curated again by Thames & Hudson, and included artist Zofia Kulik in conversation with Fiona Rogers, a talk entitled ‘Calling The Shots: Exploring the History of Queer Photography’ featuring Curator of Prints at the Victoria & Albert Museum Zorian Clayton, and ‘Black Chronicles’ with Renée Mussai and Mark Sealy.
What emerged from Photo London 2025 was a portrait of the medium at a pivotal moment—confident in its expanded definition, committed to emerging voices, and unafraid to confront its own history. After ten years, the fair has evolved from an ambitious upstart to an essential institution, one that reflects not merely London’s photographic community but the medium’s global future. In an art world increasingly questioning traditional categories, Photo London’s embrace of photography’s hybrid possibilities feels both timely and prophetic.
Photo London ran 14-18 May 2025 at Somerset House. Full programme details at photolondon.org
All images courtesy of Photo London / Sam Talbot
