UK’s first permanent public venue wholly dedicated to new talent in contemporary photography will open in South London in late 2026.
“For ten years, Peckham 24 has created career-defining moments for photographers who would otherwise have struggled to find a platform. Bermondsey 223 means we can now do that not just for three days in May, but every week of the year.”
— Simon Bishop and Vivienne Gamble, Co-Directors P24 Photo CIC
P24 Photo, the community interest company behind Peckham 24, today announces their upcoming permanent venue Bermondsey 223, a new world-class public arts organisation at 223 Southwark Park Road in Bermondsey, SE16. The venue is a landmark building owned by Southwark Council which will be fully refurbished and the building ready for handover in late 2026 and programme set to begin in 2027.
Bermondsey 223 will be the first venue of its kind in the UK: a purpose-built, accessible space dedicated to supporting and developing new talent in contemporary photography. Admission to all exhibitions will be free.
The announcement of the new space coincides with the tenth edition of Peckham 24 festival — the ERAS Edition, running 15–17 May 2026 at Copeland Park, Peckham — a milestone that marks a decade of work that has made the case, and now made the space, for the next chapter.
“Peckham 24 was always about more than a festival. It was about understanding that world-class contemporary photographers need the support of their artistic community to help develop and sustain their careers. Bermondsey 223 is what ten years of that support looks like when it has a permanent home.”
—Simon Bishop and Vivienne Gamble Co-Directors, P24 Photo CIC
Since beginning in 2016 as a pop-up on the fringe of Photo London Week, Peckham 24 has grown from a 24-hour format into one of the most respected independent photography festivals in Europe. Over ten editions, the festival has provided a vital platform for more than 200 emerging and early-career photographers, curators and collaborators — offering high profile exhibition opportunities, critical dialogue and an audience that is rarely provided for artists at the start of their careers.
The British Journal of Photography has described the festival as “a mainstay in the UK photographic calendar”. In 2023, the festival partnered with the V&A Museum to host the V&A Parasol Foundation Prize for Women in Photography, cementing its position as a serious force in UK lens-based arts. And yet, for nine of those ten years, Peckham 24 packed up after the festival on Sunday night. The conversation it started, and the community it built, had no permanent home. Bermondsey 223 changes that.
The Peckham 24 team were appointed to be the new operators of 223 Southwark Park Road after an open bid process by Southwark Council in 2024.
Housed in a fully refurbished 1960s building on Southwark Park Road, Bermondsey 223 has been designed from the ground up to sustain, develop and exhibit emerging lens-based talent all year round. The ground floor will feature a large public exhibition space and dedicated screening room, with a programme of four major exhibitions per year. All exhibitions will be free to enter. Also on the ground floor: a professional photography studio for hire and a flexible multipurpose space for artist talks, workshops, late-night openings, and community events.
The first floor will be home to up to ten artist studios and creative workspaces, some of which will be subsidised as part of Bermondsey 223’s artist development programme. Subject to build specification, the venue will also offer rooftop access for photography shoots.
“Bermondsey is a proudly working-class community with a centuries-old relationship with the arts. The borough motto — Prosunt gentibus artes, arts profit the people — has been true of this place since long before we arrived. We want to make it true again for the people who live here now.”
— Simon Bishop and Vivienne Gamble, Co-Directors, P24 Photo CIC
Bermondsey 223 will be a not-for-profit organisation with an explicit social purpose. The venue will serve as a hub for creative learning and community participation, with programmes specifically designed for local young people, Southwark residents and those who have had little or no prior engagement with the arts.
The learning and participation programme will span three areas: artist development (residencies, mentoring, work experience and employability pathways for emerging photographers and curators), youth education (after-school and summer photography clubs, multi-media skills training, curated exhibitions of young people’s work) and community programmes (including a Senior Photo Club addressing social isolation, a community archive project, and lifelong learning for local residents). The social context is stark. Fewer than one in ten arts workers in the UK have working-class roots — a figure that falls even lower in parts of London (Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre, 2024). Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has pledged to ensure that “creativity can be explored by all and not just the privileged few”. Bermondsey 223 was built to be part of that answer.
Alongside new artistic commissions, artists and collaborators from previous editions of Peckham 24 have been invited back to show how their practice has developed since they first exhibited with the festival — a living retrospective of a decade’s work and a tribute to the community the festival has helped to build.
The ERAS edition will also serve as the first major public moment for Bermondsey 223, with the launch of artist studio pre-registration for the new venue.
A nationwide Open Call for new UK talent to exhibit in the inaugural programme at Bermondsey 223 will launch at Peckham 24 this weekend. The P24 X Hahnemühle Spotlight Series will be a major new talent programme, offering much-needed exhibition and mentoring opportunities for graduates of university photography programmes around the UK, as well as opportunities for self-taught artists to access a platform to help develop successful artistic careers.
