Photo exhibitions turn lens on Liverpool region communities

A series of photography exhibitions are being staged to showcase work captured on camera by communities across the Liverpool City Region.

The Photo Here summer shows are part of the combined authority’s cultural events programme and have come out of workshops run by Liverpool’s Open Eye Gallery with members of diverse communities, including refugees and people who are D/deaf or use British Sign Language, working with professional photographers in residence to tell their own stories and those of the areas they live in.

The first exhibitions have opened in Sefton, St Helens and Knowsley.

Crosby Library is hosting Not All Who Wander Are Lost by Stephanie Wynne and Crosby Camera Club explores the unique ‘feel’ of an area and how people respond to a location be it streets, green spaces or the coast,

Waiting Rooms by Abdullrhman Hassona and Cafe Laziz can be found at World of Glass in St Helens. The exhibition features portraits of people with different immigration and residence statuses with each image introducing a St Helens resident and the stories that make the town feel rich with history and experience.

Above: Communities of Welcome at Kirkby Art Gallery. Top: The Photo Here exhibition at Crosby Library.

And Communities of Welcome by Anoosh Ariamehr and his Knowsley group of merged refugees and asylum seekers is on show at Kirkby Art Gallery, bringing stories of connection, identity and place.

Another three exhibitions - in Wirral, Halton and Liverpool - are still to come between July and November, along with the launch of the 2025 Liverpool City Region Photography Awards with both ‘Photo Here’ participants and the wider public invited to enter.

Sarah Fisher, executive director of the Open Eye Gallery said: “We’re anticipating some fabulous work to be featured in the exhibitions from our socially engaged photography groups and are delighted to have the opportunity to showcase them across the Liverpool City Region.

“We’re also hoping that many of our community photographers will enter this year’s LCR Photography Awards. It would be a great achievement, having witnessed the progress of the projects, to see their pictures included.”