Firehawks exhibition tour and portfolio reviews with Stephen King

Socially Engaged Photography Network North West Meet-Up 

Saturday 4 October / 1.30pm–3.30pm / Open Eye Gallery 

free, drop in for the tour / RSVP for a portfolio review

Join us for the next Socially Engaged Photography Network’s North West regional meet-up with guest speaker and socially engaged photographer Stephen King, who will discuss his current exhibition on a gallery tour of Firehawks.

Firehawks is a project which is the first of its kind and the culmination of years of research, beginning with a collaboration with Open Eye Gallery in 2021, where Stephen explored his own experience of firesetting. After collaborating with London Fire Brigade Firesetting Intervention Scheme, Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service and Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service as well as numerous conversations and workshops with individuals with lived experience, he has developed an exhibition of work borne out of his innate ability to listen and respond to people’s experiences and sensitively transpose their accounts into visual, metaphorical depictions.

The exhibition tour will be followed by a Q&A with you, our audience. 

We will also have optional one-one portfolio reviews, where we’d like to see your own photographic or socially engaged work if you’d like to share it with us. Please RSVP via Eventbrite and we’ll then send you a link to choose a 15-minute slot for your portfolio review.

We will all then come back together for a final group discussion. 

Schedule

1.30pm–2pm: Introduction to SEPN and Firehawks gallery tour by Stephen King and Liz Wewiora (Head of Social Practice at Open Eye Gallery) with time for Q&A

2.15pm–3.15pm: Optional one-one bookable portfolio review slots with Stephen King, Liz Wewiora and Angy Williams (Firehawks Creative Producer) 

3.15pm–3.30pm: Final group discussion and time to share work with the wider group. 

SEPN (Socially Engaged Photography Network) is a national initiative which supports the discussion and acceleration of socially engaged photographic practice. This means projects where artists and communities come together to co-author or co-produce work about topics which matter to them.

Stephen King is a socially engaged photographer with over 20 years’ experience of working across cultural, educational and community sectors. His practice is varied but always involves collaborations with people and how they navigate society as individuals or part of a community. Moving from documentary and editorial work in 2008 to more personally instigated & collaborative work, he has since collaborated on projects with industrial workers, miners, prisoners, LGBTQ communities, veterans, retail workers, universities, people with dementia, homeless, young people, travellers, sporting clubs, medical institutions, artists, writers and academics.