Culture Shifts: Local presents collaboratively produced photography from eight socially engaged photography projects across Liverpool. The work demonstrates how photography as an art practice can be used to help communities define themselves, bridge cultural divides and communicate the vital issues of today.

The projects are all part of the citywide, long-term Culture Shifts project. Each of the eight projects involves select photographers working alongside one or more groups, including a support and services network for women, residents of Granby Four Streets (site of the Turner prize-winning Assemble project), and youth groups dedicated to LGBT+ support and Youth Parliament.

Unlike documentary photography, the staging, selection, and production of the images have been decided between the groups and the photographs they were working with. Because of this, the question of who took the image has little importance. This is part of Open Eye Gallery’s mission to champion socially engaged photography – photo-based projects that are participatory, in which the collaborative and conversational process of creating the photos is just as important as the final pieces.

Featuring: Tadhg Devlin with the SURF Dementia Network group, Andrew Jackson, Darryl Georgiou and Rebekah Tolley with Granby 4 Streets CLT, Tony Mallon with Women from Northwood Golden Years group, Gary Bratchford and Robert Parkinson with Widnes Golden Generation group and the Women of Windmill Hill, Colin McPherson with New Beginnings and Sefton Youth Voice group, Stephanie Wynne and Steph Fawcett with Tomorrow’s Women Wirral and women from Wirral Change, Stephen King with Communities from St. Helen’s steel, glass and canal industries.

This programme has been funded by the Strategic Touring Fund, Arts Council England.

Open Daily 6th October - 22nd December, 10:00 - 17:00 (Closed Mondays) 

Opening Night 5th October

More information can be found here

Photo: Takiyah Daly at her home, Andrew Jackson & Granby Four Streets CLT, 2017