A first look at Photo Fringe 2024 - Common Ground

The biennial, open-platform photography festival returns in October with six weeks of exhibitions and events in and beyond Brighton & Hove, Newhaven and for the first time, Portsmouth.

Photo Fringe offers a vibrant mix of photographers presenting their own work, plus photography selected from open calls, in galleries, cafés, pop-up venues, outdoor installations and other extraordinary spaces. Exhibitors for 2024 include: Rhiannon Adam, British Culture Archive and Tish Murtha, Murray Ballard, Alejandra Carles-Tolra, Laura El-Tantawy, Arpita Shah, MacdonaldStrand, Peckham 24, Pippa Healy, Mandy Williams and many more.

For its eleventh edition, many of the established names and emerging talents featured in the programme respond to the theme of “Common Ground”. Festival Director, Claire Wearn, explains, “Finding common ground is a starting point for positive change. Like photography, common ground can bridge divides, challenge stereotypes and create space for collaboration and connection.”

The Collectives Hub at Phoenix Art Space has become a well-established feature of the Photo Fringe line-up. Eight different groups of photographers, selected from open-call, will show work responding to the festival’s Common Ground theme. The selected collectives are Brighton Queer Photographers Collective, Emic Collective, Flowers of Lilith, HOLD, Iris Collective, London Alternative Photography Collective, MAP6 and Rethinking Eastern Europe.


The British Culture Archive will present work by, and inspired by, social documentary photographer and trailblazer Tish Murtha, who dedicated her life to documenting the lives of working-class communities in North East England. Alongside an exhibition of her works selected by Tish’s daughter, Ella, and BCA Founder, Paul Wright, will be a new exhibition of images resulting from Documenting Your Community - an open-submission project celebrating the photographer’s legacy and capturing life in contemporary Britain. 3 Dukes Lane (Fri-Sun, 4-13 Oct)


Showing for the first time in the UK ahead of an exhibition at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, is Alejandra Carles-Tolra‘s acclaimed series The Bears - a portrait series of women rugby players that explores group identity and gender roles. (Phoenix Art Space 23 - 27 Oct)

A group show, A Land Within, at Marine Workshops in Newhaven (1-14 November) will be curated by independent publishers Jane & Jeremy, exploring the land and our connection to it. Artists involved are Rhiannon Adam, Alison Lloyd (in association with John Marchant Gallery), Molly Maltman, Kathryn Martin, Véronique Rolland and Sara Knelman. Rhiannon Adam will present new work questioning our place in the cosmos and reflecting on her recent experience of being selected as one of eight creatives for dearMoon, the recently cancelled, first-ever civilian crew to fly to the moon. Jane & Jeremy will also present an installation and workshop space in association with Photoworks.

John Marchant Gallery will host a six-week exhibition (from 25 Oct) of photography, collage and film by the artist, activist and curator Alison Lloyd, who was defined by her inventive art, revolutionary politics and humour. Although her work was included in the recent Women in Revolt! exhibition at Tate, this will be the first exhibition dedicated to her work since her death in January 2024.

MacDonaldStrand will show at Galley DODO. Clare Strand and Gordon MacDonald make work in response to photographic history, politics and practice. Their project False Flags is a new iteration of their ongoing work No More Flags, a series of images of far right-wing gatherings in the UK and US. The national flags the protagonists are holding have been crudely removed from the images, in what MacDonaldStrand describe as an act of ‘cathartic Photoshopping’. Sharing the project in the UK and internationally has raised issues of ethics, intention, copyright, ownership and consent that add additional layers of interest to the images and questions over how they are viewed.

Outdoor exhibitions feature strongly in the Photo Fringe lineup. Arpita Shah, co-commissioned by Photo Fringe with The Gaia Foundation for We Feed The UK, focuses on Black-led growing initiatives in North London and will be shown on Haringey billboards and at Brighton’s ONCA Gallery. This project has also inspired another commission at Moulsecoomb Forest Garden, where local growers and artist Becky Warnock have created an exhibition to be installed at Moulsecoomb Railway Station Footbridge.


Arpita Shah, Pam, Black Rootz Wolves Lane Centre, shot for The Gaia Foundation's We Feed The UK campaign. Arts Partner, Photo Fringe

Recently elected Brighton Pavilion Green Party MP, Siân Berry, is a guest judge on the selection panel for an open call in response to the climate crisis. Open Eco will present twenty selected images in an open-air exhibition on Brighton seafront.

Work by Laura El-Tantawy will show at St Peter’s Church. Commissioned by WaterAid and part-funded by the Wimbledon Foundation, Carrying Life: Motherhood and Water in Malawi explores the burden on women giving birth without access to clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene. Through these images, El-Tantawy not only offers an intimate insight into the lived experiences of mothers across the generations but also explores the extraordinary bond between women giving birth in such unsafe circumstances.


A rolling programme of Photo Fringe exhibitions shows at the Regency Town House. This place is not a passive landscape (4-13 Oct) offers transformed experiences of place by Pippa Healy and Mandy Williams. Also at The Regency Town House, Expression, an ongoing portrait series of celebrated artists by Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize winner, Richard Boll (4-13 Oct).

Photo Fringe is well known for extending beyond the boundaries of its home city of Brighton & Hove, both with its online exhibitions and by stretching along the coast to connect with venues in Hastings, Lewes, Newhaven and Worthing. This year, the festival reaches Portsmouth for the first time with shows and happenings across the six weeks of the festival, including an extended weekend (Thu 10 - Sun 13 Oct) of artist talks and tours, openings, book events and portfolio reviews.