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GRADUATE
PHOTOGRAPHY
ONLINE 2024

Each year as part of Graduate Photography Online we ask a number of professionals from the world of photography to review all the BA work submitted and choose their favourites. We hope this makes an interesting introduction to the project as a whole.

Jilke Golbach

Curator, Writer & Researcher

@jilkegolbach

Reviewing the work of this year’s BA photography graduates has been a wonderfully stimulating and eye-opening experience. I was impressed by the wide range of visual approaches, technical skills and forms of storytelling on display whilst also feeling the palpable impact of covid-19 on this generation of photographers who completed their studies in the aftermath of the pandemic. Themes of mental health, illness, domestic space, belonging, loss, grief and melancholy were prevalent among the submissions and testify to photography’s ability to act as a therapeutic medium. In making my selection, I looked for compelling narratives, original visual approaches, a balance between conception and execution, and an overall sense of coherence within the project. My six choices reflect this year’s bold explorations of personal narratives, familial relations, cultural heritage, and connections across borders. I look forward to seeing many of these projects develop further in the future.

Selected Photographers:

Olivia Baumanis

Selector's Comment: Baumanis’ project stood out to me for her original portrayal of a particular familial affliction: her father’s ongoing household and garden DIY projects that ensue in chaos, financial concerns and domestic anxiety. Bringing together candid, staged, snapshot images and formal portraits, Baumanis’ investigation of the psychological, physical and material dimensions of the DIY hamster weel in which her family is caught up is a substantive documentary project that taps into a range of moods and emotional registers. Conceptually as well as formally strong, this project stood out to me as one of the most noteworthy submissions.

Eleanor Darwin

Selector's Comment: This quietly powerful project grapples with the realities of living with and alongside terminal illness. Several submissions dealt courageously with experiences of grief and loss but Darwin’s exploration of anticipatory grief following her mother’s diagnosis with a rare autoimmune disease is remarkable for its touching visual sensibility and astute eye through which she captures a life suspended. Darwin’s use of photography demonstrates that the medium is not only a tool to record, to remember, to hold onto what might be lost, but can also be a way to connect, to evoke, and to register what might remain.

Ellie Svrlanska

Selector's Comment: This refreshing take on Bedouin culture in Jordan is a carefully executed documentary project built on a collaboration with a Bedouin community in Wadi Rum that testifies to the photographer’s ability to build a relationship of trust in an unfamiliar environment. The well-composed photographs by Svrlanska are coupled with equally commendable images taken on disposable cameras by Bedouins and joined together in a visually compelling narrative that offers an unexpected perspective on Bedouin life. I was instantly intrigued by this project and encouraged by Svrlanska’s astute reflections on her own positionality as a photographer.

Rahaf Aburideh

Selector's Comment: Aburideh’s series of staged self-portraits in Palestinian attire engages with complex themes of crosscultural heritage, connection and personhood that is rendered all the more poignant by the current conflict in Gaza. Juxtaposing the Irish landscape with her confident poses in traditional Palestinian dress, Aburideh draws attention to the intricately crafted Thobes in an act of photographic preservation. The various elements of the project cleverly work together to highlight the multifaceted nature of intercultural roots and identity.

Jasmine Sandhu

Selector's Comment: A number of submissions engaged with ancestral heritage or made use of archival material to piece together personal narratives. I found Sandhu’s project particularly compelling in terms of its photographic language and its evocative tactility through which she pictures her grandparents’ present and former lives across India, Blackpool, and Preston. Touching on themes of memory and migration, I was immediately drawn in by this project and it left me wanting to see more. There are beautiful resonances between the archival and contemporary images, and the focus on hands, domestic objects, and the care with which crops are grown and cooked are especially moving.

David Maguire

Selector's Comment: The fashion aesthetic of Maguire’s close-up images make for a captivating portrayal of his subjects that oozes with intimacy, sensitivity and sensuality: this is a project that harnesses photography’s potential to awaken all the senses. Each image is beautifully composed and captured with great technical skill whilst still retaining a sense of the fleeting moment. I am impressed by Maguire’s photographic sensibility and his skilful conveyance of emotional states of being.

Selection by Anne Adesolabomi Nwakalor ▸
Founding Editor, No! Wahala Magazine

Selection by Darren Campion ▸
Assistant Curator, Photo Museum Ireland

View Submission Guidelines  ▸