Photographers' Gallery Launches 10-Year Programme for Emerging Artists

The Photographers' Gallery in London will run a 10-year programme of biennial solo exhibitions for emerging photographers, funded by what the gallery calls "a very generous grant" from the UK-based John Kobal Foundation.

One artist will be selected every two years. The first solo exhibition will be announced later this year and will run from 23 June to 26 September 2027. The grant covers all costs of staging the shows in the gallery's second-floor space, newly named the John Kobal Foundation Gallery.

Director Shoair Mavlian declined to specify the grant's value but set out the programme's purpose in an interview with The Art Newspaper. "The whole idea of the programme is based around giving an opportunity to someone who hasn't had an institutional solo show before," she says.

What does the grant change for the gallery?

It buys room to take risks. Mavlian is blunt about the commercial pressures facing UK museums, including her own institution.

"The Photographers' Gallery is in a similar situation to all other museums in the UK in that we are pressured into having to always do blockbuster shows [to generate revenue]," she says. "And what this programme allows us to do is to take risks."

The financial context is tight. The gallery received a renewed three-year grant from Arts Council England in 2023, as one of the funding body's national portfolio organisations. That grant represents around 20% of the gallery's revenue, according to Mavlian. It has stayed flat through years of rising operational costs and high inflation, leaving the gallery, like other UK arts organisations, more reliant on other income sources.

The numbers show the shift. The gallery's accounts for the year ending 31 March 2025 report £620,573 in admissions income. That figure is more than two thirds the value of its Arts Council grant.

Ticket revenue shapes programming. "We are under this constant pressure to sell tickets and bring people through the door—which, of course, is important," Mavlian says. "But what that means is we then don't always see the full breadth of photography that is being made today. We are often looking at things that are historic rather than looking at the contemporary."

The new programme directly counters that drift. It guarantees institutional visibility for photographers who have never had a solo museum show, on a decade-long cycle.

Who was John Kobal?

The John Kobal Foundation was established in 1990, a year before the death of the eponymous film historian and photography collector. Its stated mission is "to advance the public appreciation and awareness of photography".

Michael Mack, co-chair of the foundation, framed the grant in terms of that legacy. "We are delighted to support this important new initiative," he says, "which honours John's vision of nurturing creativity and innovation in photography."

The first artist selected for the programme will be announced later this year, offering an early test of how far the gallery's new risk-taking mandate stretches.