Events

Tish: Special screening and Q&A

13 December 2023

Past Events

Book Launch: A Look At A New Perspective

23 November 2023

Events

Book Launch: ‘544m’ By Kevin Crooks

30 November 2023

Events

Community workshops @ Ellesmere Port Library

6 November - 5 February 2024

Exhibitions

Bernice Mulenga @ Open Eye Gallery Atrium Space

17 November - 17 December 2023

Past Events

Bernice Mulenga: Artist Talk

18 November 2023

Exhibitions

Community @ Ellesmere Port Library

26 October - 11 April 2024

Past Exhibitions

Local Roots @ The Atkinson

14 October 2023

Past Events

Critique Surgery for Socially Engaged Photographers

6 November 2023

Past Events

Deeds Not Words: panel discussion

12 October 2023

Past Exhibitions

Deeds Not Words @ Atrium Space

3 October - 22 October 2023

Ode To Our Space @ Digital Window Gallery

29 September - 23 December 2023

A Look At A New Perspective @ Digital Window Gallery

29 September - 23 December 2023

Past Events

Exhibition Launch: A Place of Our Own

28 September 2023

Past Events

Book Launch: Crow Dark Dawn

19 October 2023

Reflections

12 September - 22 December 2023

Past Events

Sandra Suubi ‘Samba Gown’ Procession

9 September 2023

Exhibitions Future Exhibitions

A Place of Our Own

29 September - 22 December 2023

Past Events

POETRY BOOK LAUNCH: JACK BENNETT – LUNETTE

7 September 2023

Exhibitions

A Portrait of the High Street @ Prescot

31 August 2023

Projects Past Exhibitions

Our Home. Our Place. Our Space. @ Walton

16 August - 2 October 2023

Past Events

Poetry Reading: Coast to Coast to Coast’s sixth Birthday!

16 September 2023

Past Events

CHILDREN’S STORYTELLING: The Mermaid’s Revolt

9 September 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

Findings: an exhibition by service users of Age Concern

8 August - 10 September 2023

Past Events

Film screening: The Undesirables + When the Sea sends forth a Forest

24 August 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

Reclaim. Suzanne St Clare and residents of Chester @ Chester

5 August - 10 September 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

Picturing High Streets. Ciara Leeming and The Spider Project @ Chester

28 July - 10 September 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

Picturing High Streets. Suzanne St Clare and Chester Traders @ Chester

28 July - 10 September 2023

VR: Home. Perspectives

4 May - 21 May 2023

Past Events

Book Launch: Vestige

27 July 2023

Past Events

An Evening of Poetry: Launch of Life Stills and readings from Merseyside Stanza Poets

15 June 2023

Past Exhibitions

LCR Photo Award Winners @ Williamson Art Gallery and Museum

1 June - 1 July 2023

Past Exhibitions

Me, Myself, My SPACE @ The Atkinson

27 May - 9 July 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

as the glass clears

25 May - 29 May 2023

Past Events

Poets Hanan Issa and James Conor Patterson at Open Eye Gallery

21 May 2023

Projects

PLATFORM: ISSUE 5

27 April 2023

Past Exhibitions

Solace in the City @ DWG

5 May - 21 May 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

Home. Making @ Kirkby Gallery

1 May - 15 June 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

Home. Settings @ The Atkinson

4 May - 15 June 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

Home. Perspectives @ Open Eye Gallery

4 May - 21 May 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

Home. Land @ Norton Priory Museum and Gardens

27 April - 11 June 2023

Past Events

HOME: Launch Event

4 May 2023

Projects

HOME SCHOOLS ACTIVITY PACK

18 April - 21 July 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

Home. Liberty @ Unity Theatre Exhibition Space

1 May - 31 May 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

Home. Resistance @ Williamson Art Gallery and Museum (Wirral)

26 April - 27 May 2023

Past Events

People and Places: Whitby High School Student Exhibition Private View

28 April 2023

Past Events

The Liverpool Camarade – part of The European Poetry Festival 2023

11 May 2023

Exhibitions Past Exhibitions

People and Places @ Open Eye Gallery

26 April - 1 May 2023

Exhibitions Future Exhibitions

Liverpool Biennial 2023

10 June - 17 September 2023

Past Events

Zine Launch: PLATFORM Issue 5

20 April 2023

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Kinship

9 May - 7 July 2019

Opening 10th May, Kinship at Open Eye Gallery navigates the dynamics of modern relationships. The exhibition presents projects from seven photographers, all women, addressing traditional ideas of how people might relate to others based on their gender, age, or position within a family. Together, the artists seek to open up new ways of thinking about how we express our sense of kin — as friends, family and partners.

 

Pixy Liao, In One Dress II, 2017. Shown at Kinship, Open Eye Gallery

Pixy Liao, In One Dress II, 2017

 

In Experimental Relationship, Pixy Liao presents her everyday dynamic as a Chinese born woman in a relationship with a younger Japanese man. Her photos consist of ‘experiments’ with her partner that subvert the traditional gender roles of heterosexual relationships. By playfully inverting the balance of sex and power, Liao opens up a space to re-approach relationships and move beyond unfair gender roles.

Johanna Heldebro takes a different approach to capturing private family dynamics. After some time of having no contact with her father following her parent’s divorce, she learned that he was living a new life in Sweden. She decided to cross the Atlantic to learn more about him by taking photos of his new life, without his knowledge. Using techniques learned from police surveillance photography, Heldebro’s To Come Within Reach of You (Gunnar Heldebro, Hässelby Strandväg 55, 165 65 Hässelby, Sweden) charts the artist’s attempts to learn about her father’s new life. Although great steps are taken towards this (including breaking into his home), Heldebro finds this one-way process of ‘following’ an unfulfilling way of coming to know someone.

Lydia Goldblatt also photographed her father, following him through his experience of living with dementia during the last years of his life. Still Here also involves images of her mother going through the experience of losing someone, alongside close-up images of moments and objects that act as visual poetry.

One Day Young, a project from Jenny Lewis, captures intimate portraits of women with their newborn children on the very first day of their lives together. Rather than photographing mothers in hospitals, she visits them in their homes, all a bike ride away from her flat in Hackney. The portraits share a powerful range of emotions women experience at the start of their motherhood.

In an early project titled Family (1994), Margaret Mitchell photographed her nieces and nephews growing up on an estate in Stirling. In this Place, a new series begun over 20 years later, revisits the lives of her late sister’s children, documenting their relationships against the backdrop of urban displacement and inequality that passes from generation to generation.

 

Johanna Heldebro, To Come Within Reach of You, Shown at Kinship, Open Eye Gallery

Johanna Heldebro, Night Watch II,  from To Come Within Reach of You (Gunnar Heldebro, Hässelby Strandväg 55, 165 65 Hässelby, Sweden), 2009

 

Momo Okabe’s photobook Dildo reached cult status through being both super-rare (limited to 55 copies worldwide) and, to some, hyper-sexual. The project follows two of the artist’s partners with fluid gender identities, including a journey through gender reassignment surgery in Thailand. Presented as a photographic family journal, running throughout the series is an immense sensitivity, compassion and acceptance.

For the past three years, Open Eye Gallery has collaborated with residents from the Northwood Golden Years group in Kirkby, alongside filmmaker Jemma O’Brien and photographer Tony Mallon. For Kinship, Jemma O’Brien presents a new collaborative video work that reflects upon the close ties, trust and friendships formed between the group over the fifty years they have spent together and witnessed their hometown change.Kinship is part of RISE, a year-round programme by Liverpool City Council to champion the achievements of women and celebrate underrepresented histories. As part of this, Open Eye Gallery is seeking to address a historic gender imbalance in photography by ensuring at least 80% of the artists they work with this year are women or a gender minority.

Kinship runs from 9th May to 7th July, featuring the work of Pixy Liao, Lydia Goldblatt, Johanna Heldebro, Jenny Lewis, Momo Okabe, and Margaret Mitchell. Entrance to Open Eye Gallery is free, always. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 10am – 5pm. Open Eye Gallery is supported by Arts Council England, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Foyle Foundation and Liverpool City Council.

 

Banner Image:

1|  Dilek & Otto, Jenny Lewis, from ‘One Day Young’, 2016

 

Opening 10th May, Kinship at Open Eye Gallery navigates the dynamics of modern relationships. The exhibition presents projects from seven photographers, all women, addressing traditional ideas of how people might relate to others based on their gender, age, or position within a family. Together, the artists seek to open up new ways of thinking about how we express our sense of kin — as friends, family and partners.

 

Pixy Liao, In One Dress II, 2017. Shown at Kinship, Open Eye Gallery

Pixy Liao, In One Dress II, 2017

 

In Experimental Relationship, Pixy Liao presents her everyday dynamic as a Chinese born woman in a relationship with a younger Japanese man. Her photos consist of ‘experiments’ with her partner that subvert the traditional gender roles of heterosexual relationships. By playfully inverting the balance of sex and power, Liao opens up a space to re-approach relationships and move beyond unfair gender roles.

Johanna Heldebro takes a different approach to capturing private family dynamics. After some time of having no contact with her father following her parent’s divorce, she learned that he was living a new life in Sweden. She decided to cross the Atlantic to learn more about him by taking photos of his new life, without his knowledge. Using techniques learned from police surveillance photography, Heldebro’s To Come Within Reach of You (Gunnar Heldebro, Hässelby Strandväg 55, 165 65 Hässelby, Sweden) charts the artist’s attempts to learn about her father’s new life. Although great steps are taken towards this (including breaking into his home), Heldebro finds this one-way process of ‘following’ an unfulfilling way of coming to know someone.

Lydia Goldblatt also photographed her father, following him through his experience of living with dementia during the last years of his life. Still Here also involves images of her mother going through the experience of losing someone, alongside close-up images of moments and objects that act as visual poetry.

One Day Young, a project from Jenny Lewis, captures intimate portraits of women with their newborn children on the very first day of their lives together. Rather than photographing mothers in hospitals, she visits them in their homes, all a bike ride away from her flat in Hackney. The portraits share a powerful range of emotions women experience at the start of their motherhood.

In an early project titled Family (1994), Margaret Mitchell photographed her nieces and nephews growing up on an estate in Stirling. In this Place, a new series begun over 20 years later, revisits the lives of her late sister’s children, documenting their relationships against the backdrop of urban displacement and inequality that passes from generation to generation.

 

Johanna Heldebro, To Come Within Reach of You, Shown at Kinship, Open Eye Gallery

Johanna Heldebro, Night Watch II,  from To Come Within Reach of You (Gunnar Heldebro, Hässelby Strandväg 55, 165 65 Hässelby, Sweden), 2009

 

Momo Okabe’s photobook Dildo reached cult status through being both super-rare (limited to 55 copies worldwide) and, to some, hyper-sexual. The project follows two of the artist’s partners with fluid gender identities, including a journey through gender reassignment surgery in Thailand. Presented as a photographic family journal, running throughout the series is an immense sensitivity, compassion and acceptance.

For the past three years, Open Eye Gallery has collaborated with residents from the Northwood Golden Years group in Kirkby, alongside filmmaker Jemma O’Brien and photographer Tony Mallon. For Kinship, Jemma O’Brien presents a new collaborative video work that reflects upon the close ties, trust and friendships formed between the group over the fifty years they have spent together and witnessed their hometown change.Kinship is part of RISE, a year-round programme by Liverpool City Council to champion the achievements of women and celebrate underrepresented histories. As part of this, Open Eye Gallery is seeking to address a historic gender imbalance in photography by ensuring at least 80% of the artists they work with this year are women or a gender minority.

Kinship runs from 9th May to 7th July, featuring the work of Pixy Liao, Lydia Goldblatt, Johanna Heldebro, Jenny Lewis, Momo Okabe, and Margaret Mitchell. Entrance to Open Eye Gallery is free, always. Open Tuesday-Sunday, 10am – 5pm. Open Eye Gallery is supported by Arts Council England, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Foyle Foundation and Liverpool City Council.

 

Banner Image:

1|  Dilek & Otto, Jenny Lewis, from ‘One Day Young’, 2016

 

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