Courage to Welcome – An Exhibition of Street Photographs
Created by volunteers and staff working with refugees in Clonmel for Refugee Week in Clonmel this street-photography exhibition explores the theme ‘Courage to Welcome’. Captured in public spaces and everyday settings, the images were taken by members of the local volunteer group Clonmel Together, alongside staff from a local IPAS centre and Tipperary County Council’s Local Authority Integration Team. Curated by street photographer Kevin Lim, the work focuses on unscripted moments of connection, presence, and shared space. Together, the photographs reflect how welcome is lived in small gestures, ordinary encounters, and the rhythms of daily life around us.
Curator’s Note from photographer, Kevin Lim:
“The Courage to Welcome exhibition, created by volunteers and staff working with refugees in Clonmel, Tipperary, asks something simple of its visitors: to look again.
At first glance, the photographs may appear ordinary, images of familiar objects and places, yet each image gestures beyond itself, holding a quieter tension: the pause before entry, the hesitation at a threshold, the silent question of belonging within a welcoming community.
Visitors are requested to consider welcome not as an idea, but as a series of small, practical acts of kindness that support newcomers to the community.
The perspective of the photographs on show is that of the volunteer. Their photos reveal how ordinary spaces include or exclude, how everyday objects and gestures can calm or unsettle the mind.
These photographs point to the quiet, often invisible labour of welcome, and to the courage it demands, both from those who offer it and from those who must find the will to accept it.
Welcome is not sentiment. It is structure, not opinion, but action. Not distance but crossing.
This exhibition reflects on what it means to hold space so others can move forward, to build, to support, to help newcomers span the divide.
The courage to welcome is choosing to stand in the gap and make this journey possible.”
Opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10am-4.30pm
Suitable for ages 10+
