PREVIOUS EVENTS
What's gone before at Studies in Photography
exhibition
Studies Festive Exhibition
We are delighted to end the year with a mixed show featuring 19 incredible artists:
Victor Albrow, Jane Brettle, Constanza Dessain, Robin Gillanders, Jennifer Gough-Cooper, Alexander Hamilton, Sheila Masson, Norman McBeath, Jaime Molina, John Perivolaris, Ron O’Donnell, Diana Sosnowska, Oana Stanciu, Iain Stewart, Andy Wiener, David Williams, Graham Williams.
Sat 15th Nov - Sat 20th Dec 2025
Free admission
conference
SHIFTING PERSPECTIVES, Scotland’s Urban Architecture through the Lens
Organised by Studies in Photography, the conference will explore how photography has shaped and recorded the urban architectural heritage of Scotland.
5 November, National Library of Scotland
exhibition
New Contemporaries 2
The New Contemporaries exhibition is an ongoing segment from our journal which features three new and emerging artists in photography both in Scotland and internationally. In this feature we are exhibiting works from Laetitia Heisler, Gabriela Pieniążek and Graham Williams.
Fri 5th Sep -Sat 8th Nov 2025
Free admission
Exhibition
PhotoDalkeith 2025
PhotoDalkeith returns for its second year at Dalkeith Palace. Celebrate the art of photography with us once again as we showcase a selection of works by some of the most distinguished contemporary photographers.
Open weekly, Friday to Sunday.
Sat 30th August - Sun 5th October 2025
exhibition
Afterimage: Sylwia Kowalczyk
Studies in Photography is pleased to present Afterimage, a striking new solo exhibition by Edinburgh-based Polish artist Sylwia Kowalczyk. Curated by independent photography curator Alexander Moore. It is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland and forms part of the British Council’s UK/Poland Season 2025, aligning with the Edinburgh International Festival’s “The Truth We Seek” focus on Poland.
FREE ENTRY
Thurs 31st July - Sat 30th August 2025.
Exhibition opening: 30th July at 6pm
Exhibition
The Killing Time
Iain Stewart
Presenting the latest exhibition and publication by Iain Stewart. The Killing Time documents Galloway's landscape and dark history, through personal connections to the stories of the Solway Martyrs and the Covenanters.
FREE ENTRY
Fri 13th June - Sat 19th July 2025
Book Launch: 14th June 2025
exhibition
New Contemporaries
Tayo Adekunle, Eoin Carey, Tiu Makkonen
This group exhibition hosts three artists who were featured in our last Winter Journal. Each artist will exhibit a series of portraits from their previous bodies of work which explore contemporary ways of seeing, self-identification, acceptance, and identity.
Fri 9th May - Sat 7th June
Studies Day: 6th June 2025 at 4pm
Exhibition
Exceptional Subjects
Norman McBeath & Melissa McCarthy
Introducing a new body of work by photographer and printmaker Norman McBeath RSA, in collaboration with the writer Melissa McCarthy.
Sat 5th April - Sat 3rd May 2025
Studies Day: 12th April
EXHIBITION
Joseph McKenzie: Father of Modern Scottish Photography
A celebration of Joseph McKenzie's work. This exhibiton features vintage and platinum prints dating between 1948-1970 in London and Scotland, including prints from McKenzie's important social study of the Glasgow Gorbals Children.
Fri 28th February - Sat 29th March 2025
Study Day: 19th March 2025
EXHIBITION
John Thomson in China
Our first exhibition of the year, featuring images from legendary Scottish photographer John Thomson (1837-1921).
Weds 29th January - Sun 23rd February
Exhibition
Another Weeping Woman - Diana Sosnowska
The first major UK exhibition of Scotland trained, US based photographer Diana Sosnowska.
Sat 13th July - Sun 28th July 2024
Exhibition
Robin Gillanders and Little Sparta
The exhibition presents important
photographs made at Little Sparta, the garden of artist/poet Ian Hamilton Finlay and collaborations with him, undertaken by Robin Gillanders between 1993 until Finlay’s death in 2006
Sat 6th April - Friday 26th April 2024
exhibition
Dreaming Difference: Exhibition
A retrospective of the work of acclaimed photographer David Williams.
Sat 3rd Feb - Sat 17th Feb 2024
The Film of the Sound and Vision of Dreaming Difference
The Film of the Sound and Vision of Dreaming Difference
Festival Exhibiton
Afterimage: Sylwia Kowalczyk
31 July – 30th August 2025
Image credit: Sylwia Kowalczyk, Untitled from Metamorphoses (2024), courtesy of the artist.
Book your place at the opening on 30th July 2025, 6:30pm
Studies in Photography is pleased to present Afterimage, a striking new solo exhibition by Edinburgh-based Polish artist Sylwia Kowalczyk. Curated by independent photography curator Alexander Moore, the exhibition runs from 31 July to 30 August 2025. It is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland and forms part of the British Council’s UK/Poland Season 2025, aligning with the Edinburgh International Festival’s “The Truth We Seek” focus on Poland.
Featuring two key bodies of work—Lethe (2017) and Metamorphoses (2024)—Afterimage explores the porous boundaries between memory, perception, and the uncanny. Kowalczyk employs analogue photography and hand-crafted collage techniques, working with taxidermied birds and mammals sourced from private collections and from the University of Edinburgh’s Zoology Department. These works layer scientific formality with surreal ruptures—split bodies, cracked eggshells, mirrored fragments—each image becoming an echo of something lost or half-remembered.
Through her process of photographing analogue prints, physically cutting and reassembling them, and then re-photographing the results, Kowalczyk creates images that hover between states: anatomical and allegorical, serene yet uncanny. The artist’s trained eye—reshaped by early retinal surgery—lends her work a unique visual tension, where perception becomes subtly misaligned, and reality is never quite stable.
Alongside the visual intensity, Afterimage integrates a rich public programme designed to deepen cultural connections.
Highlights include:
Artist Q&A Brunch:
9th August 11am–1pm
Join artist Sylwia Kowalczyk and curator Alexander Moore for a Q&A coffee morning.
Polish Poetry & Jazz:
10th August 4–6pm
Celebrated saxophonist Konrad Wiszniewski joins award winning writers Agata Masłowska and Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese.
Polish Language Tours:
23rd August 11am - 1pm
28th August 6–8pm
Artist Sylwia Kowalczyk delivers two special tours of her exhibition in Polish.
This summer exhibition will also act as a precursor to Darkness into Light: Polish Photography (2027) at Dalkeith Palace—a major exhibition from the same curator which will explore the history of surrealism in Polish photography from the mid 20th century to modern day. Afterimage builds the cultural and institutional foundations for this 2027 project and begins the dialogue with Polish audiences in Scotland.
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Sylwia Kowalczyk, (b. Lublin, Poland; based in Edinburgh) has been recognised in awards such as Fresh Faced and Wild Eyed – the Photographers’s Gallery’s pick of the most promising graduates in UK, andreGeneration 2 as one of the most promising 80 young photographers in the world, an exhibition which is touring the world and published as a book by Thames and Hudson and Aperture Foundation. Her work was also recently featured in prestigious “The Decisive Moment: Contemporary Polish Photography Since 2000” by Adam Mazur and is included in museum collections of Musée de l'Elysée in Switzerland, The UK Parliament and numerous private collections in Poland, US, South Africa, UK and South Korea.
Alexander Moore, director of Artworld Projects and curator of Afterimage, says: “Sylwia’s work invites viewers into a liminal space between perception and memory — where biological forms fracture and reassemble, and the image lingers long after you’ve looked. It is both delicate and disorientating, an act of seeing differently.”
Studies in Photography is Scotland’s lead organisation, established in 1983, solely devoted to the promotion of historic and contemporary photography. Delivered through a program of publishing (books, journals and prints) and exhibitions. In 2023 it opened a gallery and bookshop in the West End of Edinburgh.
Creative Scotland is the public body that supports culture and creativity across all parts of Scotland, distributing funding provided by the Scottish Government and The National Lottery, which, now in its 30th year, has supported over 14,600 projects with more than £501.9 million in funding through Creative Scotland and its predecessor, the Scottish Arts Council. Further information at creativescotland.com. Follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Learn more about the value of art and creativity in Scotland and join in at www.ourcreativevoice.scot
exhibition
China Through the Lens of John Thomson
As part of the John Thomson centenary celebrations of 2021 we are delighted to have been given the opportunity to present some beautifully created prints of his work.
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