About

PhotoMonth – Relaunching October 2025

PhotoMonth returns in October 2025, relaunching with a renewed energy and expanded vision. This year, we’ll be exhibiting photography across all London areas with an “E” postcode—from EC1 to SE15, from Hackney to Deptford.

Open Call & Exhibition Submissions Now Open
Submit your work for solo and group exhibitions until 30 June 2025. Selected submissions will feature in established galleries, alternative venues, and curated pop-up spaces across the city.

What to Expect
This year’s PhotoMonth will showcase the full breadth of photographic practice—from personal to political, street to landscape, portraiture to conceptual work. Expect work from LGBTQ+ artists, early-career photographers, and international names alike. All genres, all voices, all processes welcome.

Highlights include:

  • Collaborations with major institutions, including Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, Autograph ABP, Four Corners, Gray Gallery, and others.
  • The PhotoMonth Hub at Mile End Art Pavilion, is hosting the Open Call exhibition selected by the Curatorial Advisory Board, an exhibition by Zed Nelson (The Anthropocene Illusion), and work from recent graduates and academic staff from across the UK.
  • City-wide QR-coded interactive map, listing every show and venue for visitors to explore.
  • Weekend walking tours led by photographers, curators, and the PhotoMonth team—guiding audiences through exhibition clusters in different neighbourhoods.
  • Night walks in Bermondsey, Deptford, and the Docklands.
  • Film screenings related to photography, including Q&As with directors and actors, hosted at Hackney Picturehouse.
  • Flyposting of photographic works in key cultural areas.
  • A mini-symposium on the theme of “Longing”.


A Democratic Celebration of Photography
From 2 October to 3 November 2025, PhotoMonth will continue to create a democratic platform where photographers of any age, gender, or practice can exhibit their work. It remains committed to showcasing photography in all its forms, making space for underrepresented voices, experimental processes, and urgent ideas.

This relaunch is also a tribute to Maggie Pinhorn, Director of Alternative Arts, who founded the original PhotoMonth festival, which ran successfully from 2001 to 2018 across East London.

Instagram @photomonthlondon
Email info@photomonth.co.uk
Website https://photomonth.co.uk

PhotoMonth
Steering Committee
David George, Tom Hunter, David Edmunds, Sarah Thomson, Zelda Cheatle, Alan Duff, Ian Phillips-McLaren.

Communications & Strategy
Caterina Mestrovich

Press Officer
Lea Rebollo

Curatorial Advisory Board
For PhotoMonth EastLondon 2025

Cherelle Sappleton
Graduating with an MA in Fine Art from Central St Martins in 2013, she has successfully exhibited both in the UK and internationally. Commissioned to create work for Great Ormond Street Hospital, National Trust, Hospital Rooms and the National Theatre. A multi-disciplinary artist, British-Caribbean, working with sound, photography, collage and installation. Cherelle worked with Autograph for several years and has made many films of photographers within the Autograph archive. Cherelle is part of the Working-Class Creatives Database.

Avijit Datta
Avijit is a former NHS consultant and academic, with a passion for photography – especially contemporary photography. Avijit is concerned with maintaining standards in education, governance, creativity, fiduciary rectitude and institutional partnerships. He is a Governor of York St. John University and a DEI committee member of the Physiological Society.

Monica Allende
Born in Bilbao, Monica is an independent curator, artistic director, consultant and educator. Monica curated the Getxo Photo International Image Festival 2017-19, Directed the Landskrona Festival in Sweden, and the 17th edition of FORMAT festival. Teaching photography in Arles with VII Foundation , she also educates on photography in Mexico and has recently returned from teaching in Bolivia.Having spent some years picture editing for the Sunday Times, she has links with World Press  and is currently Chief Judge and Curator of the Sony World Photography Awards.

Fiona Shields
Head of Photography for the Guardian News and Media Group, Fiona has over twenty years’ picture editing experience across a range of newspaper titles as well as being a curator, speaker on photojournalism and mentor within the photography community. Throughout her career she has been involved in the coverage of some of the most historic news stories of our time including conflicts around the world, large-scale natural disasters, and the humanitarian crises resulting from the growing refugee numbers across the globe. She has judged numerous high profile photographic awards including the Sony World Photography Awards, The Carmignac Photojournalism Award, The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize and is a regular nominator for the prestigious Prix Pictet Prize. Fiona was the chair of the global jury for the World Press Photo Awards 2024 and is a voluntary board member for Stills Gallery, Edinburgh.

Charan Singh
Born in India, now a Londoner, Charan’s research and practice are informed by his involvement with HIV/AIDS work and community activism, using photography, video and text to explore his “pre-English” life.. He uses storytelling and fictional fragments to express multilayered gender experiences and the ephemeral nature of queer desire. Also questioning the notions of the genre of self-portraiture, he achieved his PhD in photography at the Royal College of Art, London in 2021.