When a Photography Gallery Hangs AI Images

Belfast Exposed's group show Beneath the Surface includes Galatea by Jonny Sheridan, one of nine Ulster University master's graduates in the exhibition. The series is entirely AI-generated and follows a relationship between a man and a robotic AI girlfriend. Photographers objected publicly; Brendan Harkin argued that Sheridan chose AI instead of demonstrating the skill and creativity of photography. Sheridan replied that the process involved rounds of prompting, rejection and revision, and that the work itself asks whether AI amplifies misogyny or merely reflects it.

The gallery defended the selection on educational grounds, citing its role in supporting the next generation of photographic talent. That answer leaves the real problem untouched, which is labelling rather than admission. If wall text does not state how an image was made, a viewer reads two different production methods with the same confidence. Photography's evidentiary weight rests on exactly that distinction, and every graduate show from here will test it.