Next Up-2026

Next Up is an annual graduate exhibition of work from the MA in Socially Engaged Photography course, a joint programme Open Eye Gallery has run with the University of Salford since 2018. 

This year, it features work by four early-career photographers: Yaqeen Amir, Ella Horniman, Jack Smith, and Helen Constantinou (Contemporary Fine Art MA) in partnership with Homotopia.

Tadhg Devlin, Open Eye Gallery’s Head of social practice, said: “This is a great opportunity for the students to show their work as a culmination of their MA course in Socially Engaged Photography at Salford University. Their projects highlight certain aspects of society today that can often be overlooked, and hopefully this exhibition acts as a springboard for future opportunities for all involved.”

The Gathering: Stop the Clause by Helen Constantinou, in partnership with Homotopia

This work brings together twelve separate photographs taken at the beginning of the anti-Section 28 protest march on 30 April 1988. By combining these individual frames into a single image, the work resists the fragmentation of memory and reasserts a moment of collective resistance against legislation rooted in prejudice. Revisiting these photographs is not simply an act of looking back, but a reminder of the profound and lasting consequences that suppression and censorship have on individuals, communities, and society. Section 28 was born from fear, ignorance, and hostility, seeking to erase LGBTQI+ lives from public visibility and cultural discourse.

Today, these images resonate with renewed urgency. The rhetoric employed by contemporary far-right political movements echoes many of the narratives that underpinned Section 28, once again questioning the legitimacy and visibility of LGBTQI+ people and communities. By returning to this moment of protest, the work insists that these histories are not closed chapters but ongoing conversations, reminding us that visibility itself can be an act of resistance and that remembering is inseparable from the struggle against erasure.

Without A Map: A Journey of Displacement, Identity, and Belonging by Yaqeen Amir

This work brings together photography, personal memory, and participant contributions to explore how identity is preserved and reshaped through displacement. Rather than focusing only on outcomes, the portfolio traces the process — the choices, challenges, and reflections that shaped the work. It highlights the use of self-portraiture, symbolic objects, and the involvement of participants, showing how these elements gradually came together.

Print’s Not Dead by Ella Horniman

The work Ella is showing is based around the printed publications ‘Print’s Not Dead’ and ‘1922.’

For ‘Prints Not Dead’ she ran four workshops at No.93, a community centre in Harpurhey, inviting people from North Manchester to develop their own personal magazine concepts. The aim of these workshops to open them up to the world of possibilities, autonomy and power of independent publishing.

‘Print’s Not Dead’ is a collaborative zine made across four workshops where participants were invited to collage and make moodboards, find their own voice in creative writing, and have a go at both film and digital photography. In workbooks the artist designed and printed, each participant logged their work and ideas which she then collated and together they created an A5 zine with all their ideas. They talked about class, identity, neurodivergence and creativity, looked at a variety of indie magazines – and most of all they had a laugh.

The workshops were inspired by the artist’s own practice creating ‘1922 North Manchester’ –  an independent visual arts magazine she started during the final year of my BA – inspired by her own lived experience returning to creativity and education as an adult while still living in poverty; and Josh Jones, indie magazine editor and author of ‘Just Make Your Magazine’ who did his best to help in bringing 1922 to life.

Despite starting 1922 in 2024 the artist could not raise the money to print until March 2026,
reinforcing the fact that while talent and great ideas are everywhere – opportunity and
funding is not.

Anti-Charity by Jack Smith

A series based on the environment, which focuses on dumping and fly tipping around the North West, giving a dystopian but hopefully fun look at the issue and to encourage discussion amongst the audience.  

About the artists

Helen Constantinou. Working with photography as both image and material, Helen Constantinou explores the cyclical nature of history and the ways the past resurfaces in the present. Drawing from a 40-year personal archive, they transform photographs through varied materials and processes, creating works that invite viewers to reconsider what photography is, what it remembers, and how it shapes our understanding of the world.

Yaqeen Amir is a socially engaged photographer based in the UK, who recently completed an MA in Socially Engaged Photography at the University of Salford. Her work explores themes of displacement, identity, memory, and belonging, drawing on her own lived experience as a refugee. Through self portraiture, personal objects, and interviews, she creates work that challenges stereotypes and encourages dialogue about migration, culture, and resilience. 

Ella Horniman is a photographer and writer based in North Manchester and have recently completed her MA in Socially Engaged Photography.Her work explores class, identity and the barriers working class creatives face, inspired by her own lived experience of living in poverty and returning to creativity as an adult carer. Through photography, creative writing and her self-published independent magazine 1922, she creates work intended to platform underrepresented artists, their work and their stories. She is  heavily inspired by the resilience, innovation and strength of working class communities. 

Jack Smith is a photographer based in Wigan, who focuses on the environment, especially along the Leeds and Liverpool canal. With the work they want to raise awareness of issues surrounding the environment, in a fun and interactive way.

Gallery images by Helen Constantinou, Ella Horniman, Jack Smith.