ROOTING FOR THE FUTURE: Growing Culture, Community and Creativity
SUNDAY 4 SEPTEMBER / 3–4.30PM / OPEN EYE GALLERY
FREE, BOOK HERE
Join us at Open Eye Gallery for tea & coffee, a sweet thing and conversation!
Andrea Ku, Gwen Riley Jones and Hellen Songa will be joined by Open Eye Gallery curator Mariama Attah.
Our three chosen artists all have a wealth of individual experience in either growing culture, working with a community, or creativity via nature. We invite you to explore with us how their practices overlap and what we can learn from working collectively towards climate solutions via image making, understanding biodiversity and building relationships with each other.
SPEAKERS
Hellen Songa is a Zambian-Rwandan photographic journalist and documentarian with a focus on environmentalism, community-organising, food growing, and people power.
MWALULA, Hellen’s most recent project, is presented in Gallery 3 as a part of LOOK Biennial and will form a focal point during Rooting for the Future. Hellen set out on a recent trip to their father’s, Chileshe, home country of Zambia after 23 years of separation. Mwalula Green-Life Farm is a plant-based, organic farm bought and run by Chileshe. Despite the differences in location and culture, they reconnected through their similar interests in farming. This photography project is a continuation of Volunteer Voices: Liverpool Food Growers Network, a recent exhibition at Open Eye Gallery during the LOOK Climate Lab 2022, January – March 2022. Portraits of Liverpool Community Food Growers Network members were displayed with short texts explaining their involvement and interest in growing food and sharing insights, showing this as an achievable route into gardening, growing and volunteering.
Gwen Riley Jones is a photographer and socially engaged practitioner based in Greater Manchester. Gwen is currently Socially Engaged Photographer-in-Residence at Salford Art Collection in partnership with Open Eye Gallery. They have been working with groups of young people across Salford to explore how collections can be used and understood to help us tell stories.
Gwen recently worked with youth environment charity Action for Conservation and a group of talented young people to create artworks displayed in The Planting for the Planet exhibition at RHS Garden Bridgewater. The exhibition runs from 28 May – 16 November and celebrates our communities contributions to tackling climate action by greening Greater Manchester.The project also demonstrates the importance of plants and nature in creating resilient, healthy and beautiful spaces for people and the planet to coexist.
Andrea Ku is the founder of B4Biodiversity, a group of people who aim to raise the awareness of urban biodiversity through educational, practical and creative projects, eg. landscape design & building, beekeeping training, horticulture & gardening, arts projects and more. She is also an artist in her own right, taking on a facilitator’s role in her approach to making work. Andrea will be facilitating both a Bee Walks and a Bat Walk for the public as part of the LOOK Biennial!
These speakers will be chaired by Open Eye Gallery curator, Mariama Attah.
Mariama is a photography curator and editor with a particular interest in overlooked visual histories, using photography and visual culture to amplify under and misrepresented voices. Mariama was previously assistant editor of Foam Magazine and prior to this, she was curator of Photoworks, where was responsible for developing and curating progammes and events, including Brighton Photo Biennial. She was also commissioning and managing editor of the yearly magazine Photoworks Annual. Speaking about the LOOK Photo Biennial 2022: Climate, Mariama says:
We hope the Biennial prompts questions and reflections and encourages visitors to make links between the everyday and the overview, to understand the ways they may personally be affected but most importantly to consider ways in which we can positively engage and advocate for change.
SUNDAY 4 SEPTEMBER / 3–4.30PM / OPEN EYE GALLERY
FREE, BOOK HERE
Join us at Open Eye Gallery for tea & coffee, a sweet thing and conversation!
Andrea Ku, Gwen Riley Jones and Hellen Songa will be joined by Open Eye Gallery curator Mariama Attah.
Our three chosen artists all have a wealth of individual experience in either growing culture, working with a community, or creativity via nature. We invite you to explore with us how their practices overlap and what we can learn from working collectively towards climate solutions via image making, understanding biodiversity and building relationships with each other.
SPEAKERS
Hellen Songa is a Zambian-Rwandan photographic journalist and documentarian with a focus on environmentalism, community-organising, food growing, and people power.
MWALULA, Hellen’s most recent project, is presented in Gallery 3 as a part of LOOK Biennial and will form a focal point during Rooting for the Future. Hellen set out on a recent trip to their father’s, Chileshe, home country of Zambia after 23 years of separation. Mwalula Green-Life Farm is a plant-based, organic farm bought and run by Chileshe. Despite the differences in location and culture, they reconnected through their similar interests in farming. This photography project is a continuation of Volunteer Voices: Liverpool Food Growers Network, a recent exhibition at Open Eye Gallery during the LOOK Climate Lab 2022, January – March 2022. Portraits of Liverpool Community Food Growers Network members were displayed with short texts explaining their involvement and interest in growing food and sharing insights, showing this as an achievable route into gardening, growing and volunteering.
Gwen Riley Jones is a photographer and socially engaged practitioner based in Greater Manchester. Gwen is currently Socially Engaged Photographer-in-Residence at Salford Art Collection in partnership with Open Eye Gallery. They have been working with groups of young people across Salford to explore how collections can be used and understood to help us tell stories.
Gwen recently worked with youth environment charity Action for Conservation and a group of talented young people to create artworks displayed in The Planting for the Planet exhibition at RHS Garden Bridgewater. The exhibition runs from 28 May – 16 November and celebrates our communities contributions to tackling climate action by greening Greater Manchester.The project also demonstrates the importance of plants and nature in creating resilient, healthy and beautiful spaces for people and the planet to coexist.
Andrea Ku is the founder of B4Biodiversity, a group of people who aim to raise the awareness of urban biodiversity through educational, practical and creative projects, eg. landscape design & building, beekeeping training, horticulture & gardening, arts projects and more. She is also an artist in her own right, taking on a facilitator’s role in her approach to making work. Andrea will be facilitating both a Bee Walks and a Bat Walk for the public as part of the LOOK Biennial!
These speakers will be chaired by Open Eye Gallery curator, Mariama Attah.
Mariama is a photography curator and editor with a particular interest in overlooked visual histories, using photography and visual culture to amplify under and misrepresented voices. Mariama was previously assistant editor of Foam Magazine and prior to this, she was curator of Photoworks, where was responsible for developing and curating progammes and events, including Brighton Photo Biennial. She was also commissioning and managing editor of the yearly magazine Photoworks Annual. Speaking about the LOOK Photo Biennial 2022: Climate, Mariama says:
We hope the Biennial prompts questions and reflections and encourages visitors to make links between the everyday and the overview, to understand the ways they may personally be affected but most importantly to consider ways in which we can positively engage and advocate for change.