Open Eye Gallery hosts thought-provoking new show

Open Eye Gallery is hosting a thought-provoking solo show by award-winning photographer Craig Easton ahead of it going on a regional tour.

Is Anybody Listening?, which runs at the gallery from January 12 to February 26, features two projects – Bank Top and Thatcher’s Children.

The exhibition, presented by the University of Salford, aims to challenge typical stereotypes of northern communities and to raise the aspirations of young people within the region through an accompanying engagement programme, Our Time, Our Place.

Bank Top is a collaboration with writer, poet and social researcher Abdul Aziz Hafiz and focusses on a small, tight-knit community in Blackburn. It won Easton the photographer of the year accolade at the 2021 Sony World Photography Awards.

In the same awards, he also took second place in the documentary category for Thatcher’s Children, which explores the intergenerational nature of poverty and economic hardship as experienced by three generations of one family in Blackpool.

Wirral-based Easton said: “I believe in the importance of committed documentary photography as a visual record of our social and cultural history.

“As such I’m excited to be part of the Our Place, Our Time programme to encourage and support young people across the region to find their own ways to express their concerns, examine our ever-changing society and explore our communities.

“I hope between us all we can make work that will, for years to come, stand as an historical record of the challenges we face in 2020s Britain.”

The exhibition will also be shown in Salford, Blackpool and Birkenhead.

Is Anybody Listening? is at the Open Eye Gallery on Mann Island from January 12 to February 26.