As part of Northern Quarter After Dark on 15 May 2014, Redeye is proud to present a public, mass participation photography project exploring Manchester’s Northern Quarter. Redeye is working with photographers Dave Allen and Jerry Tew.  How it works is that:

• A regular grid is drawn over the Northern Quarter on a map (based on the Ordnance Survey) at 50 metre intervals.
• Each intersection point on the grid is the location for a photograph.
• Participants are assigned location(s) to photograph.  Their duty is to get as close as possible to the assigned point(s) without trespassing or putting themselves at risk.
• The participants ‘get the feel’ of their locations and then take one or more photographs (usually a few, as an insurance policy).
• The photographs from each location are gathered together on the night.
• The photographs are exhibited via a public, outdoor projection throughout the night of Northern Quarter After Dark. 

This project is open to all members of the public. To take part, please visit the Redeye Stand at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art to be assigned your location. JPEG photographs from all types of digital cameras (phones, point and shoot, SLR etc) are welcome. Images can be sent via email (adam@redeye.org.uk) or uploaded on to the Redeye laptop in person on the night. 

For the project to work, it is important that all of the points on the map are photographed. To ensure this, Redeye is seeking a group of dedicated photographers to be on hand over the course of the evening to cover some of the points. If you are interested in taking part in this way, please register via the Register Now button below, so that we can contact you directly.

About Dave Allen
Dave Allen is Head of Photography at The North Halifax Grammar School. He was educated at Moseley Art School in Birmingham and Cheltenham Art College (Fine Art). Most of his work is focused on the urban environment.

Dave says of his Photographic Grids projects:
“They are collaborative ventures, which aim to make a meaningful visual statement about an environment by adopting a systematic approach. What does this place look or feel like? The grid imposes a system that sometimes locates the picturesque but is just as likely to find the industrial, rugged, old, boring, threatening or just ugly.”

The first Photographic Grid project was carried out in Halifax and exhibited at The Dean Clough Galleries in 2004. Two smaller projects were then carried out in London and Paris, before major projects in Birmingham, the first of which was exhibited at The Mailbox, Birmingham in 2008.

About Jerry Tew
Jerry Tew lectures at the Institute of Applied Social Studies at the University of Birmingham.  He has an academic background in geography and social science and worked for some years as a social worker in the Midlands and North West of England.  Among other research projects, he is involved in an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project looking at Mutual Recovery through Creative Practices as part of their Connected Communities programme.

Jerry says of the Photographic Grids projects:
“What makes this special is providing a format for members of the community to reappraise their relationship with a visual environment that they may take for granted.  It invites participants by seek out specified but arbitrary locations within a wider cityscape, and then look around and capture whatever ‘catches their eye’ from the banal to the spectacular.” 

Timing and information
Photographic Grids: Northern Quarter After Dark, will take place from 17:30-22:00 on 15 May 2014. To take part please, visit the Redeye stand at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Market Buildings, Thomas Street, Manchester, M4 1EU between these times to be assigned a location and receive an information pack.

The projections will take place at The Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, Market Buildings, Thomas Street, Manchester, M4 1EU from 18:30-22:00. To submit your images to Redeye for inclusion in the projections, please either email them to us(adam@redeye.org.uk) or tweet them to @RedeyeNetwork or bring them to the Redeye stand in the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art to upload to our computer in person.

Images can be from any type of digital camera including phones and point and shoot cameras, but must be in JPEG format. Photographers will retain the copyright on their images, but grant Redeye and Dave Allen a license to use the images for any marketing and promotion of the event, not including syndication.