Heatherwick Studio and SPPARC render of the refurbished Olympia venue, the new home of Photo London for 2026
Photography flourishes in the UK capital this spring, with Photo London helping spearhead a calendar of events including Peckham 24, two book fairs and a new early outing from WePresent
May in London is synonymous with Photo London, a catch-all that colloquially includes the eponymous fair from 14-17 May and well-established fringe events such as Peckham 24 festival and LUMA art book fair. This year it is all starting a week earlier though, with WePresent organising On Belonging in Peckham’s Copeland Gallery from 07–10 May 2026. Featuring exhibitions by artists such as Chad Mclean, Hidhir Badaruddin, Silvia Draz, Julien Rahmani and Keerthana Kunnath – including newly commissioned work – the free event will also feature talks, screenings and openings.
Launched as a digital editorial platform in 2018, WePresent has shifted its strategy to be more platform-agnostic over the last few years, says WePresent editor-in-chief Holly Fraser – it partnered with Faces Galerie in Marseille last year, supported the Between Two Worlds one-day salon at London’s ICA in January, and also backs BJP’s annual OpenWalls exhibition with Galerie Huit Arles. “We want to build a deeper connection with our community, and the energy of gathering together physically is something that we feel can’t be replicated online,” Fraser adds. “We’re social beings after all.”
Photo London this year leaves Somerset House, relocating to Olympia, west London. The fair is taking over the Grand Hall, originally completed in 1885, but Olympia is currently undergoing a £1.3billion transformation, co-designed by Heatherwick Studio and SPPARC. Photo London is deepening its commitment to underrepresented image-makers, with Charlotte Jansen returning to curate the Discovery section, and Tristan Lund curating a new initiative, Source. A trail through the fair dedicated to solo presentations, Source will focus on artists who have not received the institutional recognition they deserve, as well as those working with expanded photography. Early highlights include Ute und Werner Mahler, presented by Peter Sillem, Frankfurt, and Shen Wei, exhibited by Bacqueville, Lille.
Peckham 24 returns to Copeland Gallery to celebrate its first decade, in which it has grown from a one-day event to an established photofestival. Peckham 24 has supported over 200 artists over the years, and co-founder Vivienne Gamble – who is now director of Stills Centre for Photography, Edinburgh – plans to showcase new work by past participants; one of her jobs as a curator is to support artists throughout their careers, she says, “to pick up at all these different junctures”.
Gamble is also keen to invite in guest curators, to give Peckham 24 “a fresh perspective, different eyes” and show where it is headed next. “It’s important to stay relevant and exciting, and keep that youthful energy we had when we started,” she adds. “But my main message is that Peckham 24 is the sum of the parts – all the people, artists, anyone who has ever contributed. That’s what has made it what it is.”
Peckham 24 will also include A Bigger Book Fair, which welcomes specialists in photography books, zines, and magazines. Meanwhile Offprint will return with photobooks and wider artist books and publications, this time leaving Tate Modern for a new venue – 180 Studios, an increasingly exciting cultural centre on The Strand that also recently opened The Underground Cinema space. Backed by the private foundation LUMA Arles, and popping up in Paris during Paris Photo as well as in London, Offprint also runs talks and signings.
Open for much longer – from 06 March to 07 June – The Photographers’ Gallery’s Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize is also another key event in this period, with the winner of the £30,000 award announced on 14 May. This year’s shortlist is Jane Evelyn Atwood, Weronika Gęsicka, Amak Mahmoodian and Rene Matić. Matić, who was also nominated for the Turner Prize, was shortlisted for their exhibition AS OPPOSED TO THE TRUTH at CCA Berlin, which took an innovative approach to installation and mixed media; Mahmoodian was nominated for One Hundred and Twenty Minutes at Bristol Photo Festival, an intimate show combining photography, poetry, text, drawing and video to explore the impact of living in exile.
Gęsicka is shortlisted for Encyclopaedia, published by Blow Up Press, a humorous take on the fake entries deliberately inserted into encyclopaedias, dictionaries and lexicons. Atwood is shortlisted for Too Much Time/Trop de Peines, a revised reprint of two works originally published in 2000, updated by Le Bec En L’Air, Marseille. Stemming from a 10-year investigation, it documents the experiences of female inmates across nine countries, which include meagre gynaecological and mental health care, and inequalities compared to their male counterparts. These issues have become even more urgent; since 2000, the global female prison population has grown by 50–60 per cent.
Photo London is open from 14 – 17 May at Kensington Olympia https://photolondon.org
https://wepresent.wetransfer.com https://www.peckham24.com https://luma.org/en/arles/about/offprint
https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/deutsche-borse-photography-foundation-prize-2026