2025 marks our 5th year anniversary of delivering Crossing Sectors; a training programme exploring the role of socially engaged photography with a variety of cross-sector and community partners. The programme mirrors the gallery’s wider way of working, actively collaborating with and bringing creatives together with experts outside of the art sector, to better inform our role within the areas of health, social care, justice, migration and climate change.
Our thanks go to this year’s facilitators Lens Lab Project, RHS (Royal Horticultural Society), members of the Clickmoor photography group, Breads and Roses trauma informed practice and counselling service, Share Knowsley, Community Integrated Care, Age Exchange, and practitioners Solomon Charles-Kelly, Ayo Barely, Daniel Regan, Bruno Castro and Rebekah Holliday.
This year’s programme has brought together photographers and creative producer/ curator participants with an active interest in social practice for the first time. We’ve made this shift in the hope that those who commission projects and artists who we commission can learn and develop their understanding of the practice together.
This year’s programme will also act as a case study for our Head of Social Practice, Liz Wewiora’s current PhD exploring the position of multi-role practitioners in socially engaged arts practice (hosted by University of Salford and Open Eye Gallery). The findings of her research will ultimately explore how communities, academia and the gallery can all learn from each other as a process of knowledge exchange, recognising that ‘expertise’ comes just as much from lived experience as it does from institutional perspectives.
We are delighted to welcome our 2025 cohort, which includes participants from Aberdeenshire Museums service Armagh City, Bainbridge and Craigavon Borough Council, as part of a new national partnership programme, Going Places. Welcome to: Joe Dixey, Ulysses Alvarez, Michelle Webster, Lily Saffron, Eda Emirdag, Sorcha Boyle, Mark Revels, Sarah Weir, Amy Miller, Cameron O’Hagan, Jess Robinson, Susanne Hakuba, Eleni Parousi, Ala Buisir, Antonina Mamzenko, Andreea Chitan, Karema Munassar, Nina Karetska, Elaine Smithies.
The programme runs until 14 July where we will also launch an exhibition of each participant’s work on our Digital Window Gallery.
Lead Image: Andreea Chitan.
