VR: Wirral Hospitals’ Schools and MaxLiteracy Award

With support from MaxLiteracy Award 2021, Open Eye Gallery has built upon our existing partnership with Wirral Hospitals’ School using archival photographs to explore the theme of Mental Health and Wellbeing with students. The project was led by funded poet and creative writer Pauline Rowe, Open Eye Gallery’s inaugural writer-in-residence.

Taking images from the Open Eye Gallery photography archive and connects them to the theme of Mental Health and Wellbeing, the exhibition will be hosted within Wirral Hospitals’ School from June 10th – September 3rd, prompting students to build upon their visual approaches to learning, informing new fusions of photography and creative writing practices. Alongside this exhibition, the project used these images as a stimulus to explore creative writing methods such as writing from objects, ekphrasis, letter-writing, diary entries, scrap-booking, micro-fiction.

In this Virtual Reality version of the exhibition, explore the archive for yourself and feel inspired by the The Wall of Imagination created by students in response to the exhibition.

Wirral Hospitals’ School

Wirral Hospitals’ School is an alternative therapeutic school, in Birkenhead. Students have been medically and/or CAMHS assessed and are unable to access mainstream education. Over 50% of the students are pupil premium and suffer from mental health issues, gender dysphoria, many are diagnosed with ASC and ADHD, and others are also co-morbid with multiple medical conditions. The students are at an increased risk of isolation, limited social mobility and limited employment, which in turn increases the risk of ongoing mental health issues.

Pauline Rowe

Pauline Rowe has worked as a professional writer, poet and tutor for over 15 years. She is interested in social engagement, poetry and photography and writing and wellbeing. She was Open Eye Gallery’s writer-in-residence from 2016 – 2019, and she has wide experience working with communities and organisations in Liverpool, within health settings and working especially with vulnerable adults and young people.

Open Eye Gallery Archive

The Open Eye Gallery Archive contains approximately 1600 prints by more than 100 photographers. Started in 1980 – three years after the Gallery opened – by Open Eye Gallery’s first Director of Exhibitions, Peter Hagerty, the collection has remained closely linked to the Gallery’s commissions and exhibition programmes. Find out more about the archive here.