Growing Up Travelling: Jamie Johnson on Photographing Irish Traveller Children

Artist Jamie Johnson and New York Gallery Director Michael Foley discuss the photographs behind Growing Up Travelling — a long-term documentary project focused on Irish Traveller children living in caravans along roadsides and in open fields throughout Ireland.

Over more than a decade, Johnson returned repeatedly to photograph many of the same children as they grew up, building relationships rooted in patience and trust with a community that has long faced prejudice and marginalization. The Traveller community is an indigenous Irish ethnic minority with centuries of history, much of it passed down through oral tradition rather than written record. The resulting photographs capture grit, beauty, resilience, and joy — and the individuality of young people with dreams and ambitions like children everywhere.