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For 2022 LOOK Climate Lab and LOOK Photo Biennial -Climate all partner with local and international communities and artists to explore the climate agenda. 

In January to March 2022, LOOK Climate lab saw communities, researchers, artists and visionaries taking over Open Eye Gallery, running a variety of labs inviting the public to workshops and discussions on tackling climate change and moving towards climate justice and healthy, sustainable living. 

Exhibitions grow out of Lab partnerships to further explore the agency of people within a sometimes overwhelming climate emergency, and LOOK Photography Biennial – Climate showcases photography which transcend languages, borders and cultures throughout summer and autumn 2022 across the northwest.  

Open Eye Gallery shows On The Ground: The Story of Trans-Nzoia Through The Trees, the work of a two month residency in the Kitale forest in Kenya, by photographer Frederick Dharshie Wissah. Working in partnership with the Museums of Western Kenya in Kitale, this project celebrates the importance of the forest which forms an integral part of the museum collection. Photographer Frederick Dharshie was commissioned as a photographer-in-residence to live and work with the community to understand how stories of the trees are passed between generations, to capture how this small ecosystem maintains its balance, and to understand who the forest is important to. The project is also currently on display in the National Museums of Western Kenya. Alongside this is Tree Story – A History of Liverpool City Region Through Its Trees. Collaborating with dot-art, Mersey Forest, 4 local schools and 4 community groups, we invited people to share stories about a tree that is important to them, their families or community well-being.

We also had the opportunity to expand the field of photographers and artists we work with through our open call. We asked people around the world to share their projects that responded to themes on climate change. Ink Collective explore the role of and reliance on bees and other species’ in their first project together. Andrew Esiebo’s project on tyres is a reminder of our dependence on cars, the prevalence of tyres and the need to repurpose or reintegrate them. This series forms part of the research project Pneuma-City. Martha Gray uses Google Earth map coordinates to point to areas of microplastic pollution. The images of these locations are then printed as bioplastic cyanotypes.  Imogen Locke explores the capabilities of mycelium as a non-human organism and living network. Marilene Ribeiro focuses on the destructive nature of forest fires. Ribeiro manipulates the negatives by burning and then editing them.

Other Lines by David Kendall, looks into thermal imaging and asks audiences to question what pollution looks like, smells like, and feels like while watching the time-lapse showing atmospheric pollution along the Wirral Peninsula.

The final project in Open Eye Gallery is MWALULA – Hellen Songa introduces us to the Mwalula Green-Life Farm, a plant-based, organic farming project located in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. More of MWALULA will be shown in four partner food-growing settings in Liverpool- Faiths4Change, Hope Community Garden, Friends of Everton Park, and John Archer Hall,alongside many of the portraits and stories of Volunteer Voices: Liverpool Food Growers Network.  Volunteer Voices: Liverpool Food Network. Descriptions alongside the portraits highlighted the positive benefits individuals gain from being involved in growing food voluntarily and communally, and reflect and that these projects have on local nature.

On the outside walls a selection of images indicate other LOOK 22  exhibitions in partnership with communities, including: Planting for the Planet, young people working with RHS Gardens Bridgewater (Salford) from June. 

Make, Mend an Sustain, Chester university photography and fashion students showing in charity shops across Chester

Before it Melts into Solids, artist Andrew Broadey, photographer Kevin Crooks and a group of Carmel College students explore how images can guide us to navigate the ecological crisis, on display from July at World of Glass (St Helens).

Launching in October as part of the second wave are three exhibitions. Steve McCoy and Stephanie Wynne’s ongoing collaborative photography project with University Salford Art Collection and Energy House Are You Living Comfortably? will be exhibited at The New Adelphi Gallery, Salford. In New Adelphi Atrium, Mimesis: A Beat Before the Rapture by Megan Powell will be on display, and a selection of images from Gwen Riley Jones project Planting for the Planet with Action for Conservation. This project examines our connection with the natural world through ongoing visual research into bees and the mutuality of the hive. Also launching in October in Wigan, local community and global voices come together in exhibitions exploring our relationship to climate, coinciding with the launch of a new Open Eye Hub in Leigh and an exhibition of Wigan and Leigh College student work at Spinners Mill.

Image: © Andy Broadey