Open Eye Gallery

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Open Eye Gallery http://www.openeye.org.uk Open Eye Gallery is one of the UK’s leading photography spaces. We’re located on the Liverpool Waterfront. Pop by and see us!

Ghostie Street Map is a guide to the Spirit(s) of Dreams exhibition by Evyn Seaton-Mooney and the children of Garston Ad...
12/08/2025

Ghostie Street Map is a guide to the Spirit(s) of Dreams exhibition by Evyn Seaton-Mooney and the children of Garston Adventure Play.

The exhibition consists of a 7 stop trail that will take you along St. Mary’s Road, Garstons High Street, beginning at the Village Motors building and culminating at the old Garston Empire. Along the way you can have fun with family activities at the Coffee Vault and look out for “Garston Ghosties” – little characters that the children at the Venny have dreamt up, that represent the life spirit of their neighbourhood. Can you find them all?

On until 1 September.

Ghostie Street Map and Spirit(s) of Dreams Activity Book (by Miriam Flüchter and Evyn Seaton-Mooney) are available to download on our website: https://openeye.org.uk/whatson/spirits-of-dreams-garston/

Locations:
📍Village Motors (190-194 St Mary's Rd, Garston, L19 2JJ)
📍The Cheese Cellar (136-138 St Mary's Rd, L19 2JJ)
📍Laundrette (110 St. Mary's Road, L19 2JG)
📍Garston Garden Centre (71 St Mary's Rd, L19 2NL)
📍Topaz (Heald House, Heald St, L19 2LY)
📍 The Coffee Vault (78 St Mary's Rd, L19 2JG)
📍The Garston Empire (Chapel Rd, L19 5PA)

Join us for an in-conversation with Liverpool’s very own John Stoddart, speaking with Open Eye Gallery’s Director Sarah ...
07/08/2025

Join us for an in-conversation with Liverpool’s very own John Stoddart, speaking with Open Eye Gallery’s Director Sarah Fisher. They will discuss the photographer’s relationship to the Liverpool music scene, his specialism in portraits of key cultural figures and the development of his photographic style.

Thursday 21 August 2025 / 6pm–8pm / Open Eye Gallery / free

RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/in-conversation-with-photographer-john-stoddart-tickets-1559527321199

John Stoddart is recognised as one of the world’s most renowned photographers. Born and raised in Liverpool, he is known as “the photographer to the stars”.

Stoddart began his photography career in 1980s Liverpool, capturing daily life in the city during a time of transition, and spending his nights shooting upcoming bands like Frankie Goes to Hollywood.

He quickly cemented the style and created some of the most iconic images of the music and cinema worlds.

Currently showing on our Digital Window Gallery: Recovery In Focus (on until 15 August)Recovery In Focus is a therapeuti...
06/08/2025

Currently showing on our Digital Window Gallery: Recovery In Focus (on until 15 August)

Recovery In Focus is a therapeutic project working with people in early recovery from addiction to drink and drugs. Looking through the lens of a camera gives them a new and creative way to tell their stories of addiction and recovery.

https://openeye.org.uk/whatson/recovery-in-focus-dwg/

The project includes workshop sessions where they learn photography skills alongside tools to help move into long term, stable recovery. They also have photography shoot days when they put their new skills into action in places around North Wales and the North West.

Participants are all in early recovery and new to photography. All photos are taken on phone cameras.

Participants: Conner, Emily, Saffron, Arwel, Tammy, Lorraine, Judith, Martin, Wayne, Lewis

Here are some of their works:

🌿 Recovery by Conner

Being at peace in my mind, which is where my battle is.
Everything good will come.
Grandad, I will make you proud.

🌿 Recovery by Saffron

Go down to the water
Be still in the trees
Picture warm light
Let go and breathe

🌿 Recovery by Emily: Footprints to Recovery

Though paths my bend and shadows fall
I find my strength standing tall.
With gentle steps, I climb the hill.
Recovery’s grace my heart will fill

Environment, Empowerment and Engagement: two years of Open Eye Hub in WiganOpen Eye Hub was set up in Wigan by Open Eye ...
01/08/2025

Environment, Empowerment and Engagement: two years of Open Eye Hub in Wigan

Open Eye Hub was set up in Wigan by Open Eye Gallery in partnership with Wigan Council and Wigan & Leigh College. It’s working across Wigan Borough, North West England and online, dedicated to sharing photography, championing local voices and developing skills.

💙 https://openeye.org.uk/two-years-of-open-eye-hub-wigan/

From 2023–2025, Open Eye Hub Wigan worked with seven photographers at different stages of their careers, on a mixture of commissions and developing their own practice. These have included explorations of different environments; socially engaged practice with women from SWAP (Supporting Wigan Arrivals Project) and the Global Friends youth group; a schools project with Lowton High School and mentoring of personal projects and support for two fellows – young early career photographers.

openeyegallery
Environment, Empowerment and Engagement: Two Years of in Wigan

Open Eye Hub was set up in Wigan by Open Eye Gallery in partnership with Wigan Council and Wigan & Leigh College. It’s working across Wigan Borough, North West England and online.

Open Eye Hub Wigan worked with seven photographers at different stages of their careers. This has included explorations of different environments; socially engaged practice with women from SWAP (Supporting Wigan Arrivals Project) and the Global Friends youth group; a schools project with Lowton High School and supporting young early career photographers.

Some of the highlights:

Mario Popham was exploring new ways of working with the landscape through the use of coal, archive, and most recently, fire, as well as looking into how local heritage meets conservation and is intertwined in the larger human planetary story.

Lizzie King has been developing her practice exploring co-creation with other species and alternative processes around the various bodies of water in the borough, particularly the canal and flashes at Wigan Flashes.

Ciara Leeming was working with the women’s group at SWAP, an asylum seeker support project, offering different activities including polaroid photography, photo collages and mapping. A big map where women plotted their journey to the UK led to some interesting conversations and was recreated within the This Must Be The Place exhibition.

Ruby Ramelize worked with the Global Friends Group, many of whom are vulnerable, global majority children from working class backgrounds – they explored what it’s like to be an artist, photographer and videographer.

Andy Yates worked with students from Lowton High School: they explored darkroom and cyanotype photography, had some photowalks and a curation workshop.

Open Eye Hub Fellows Sara Lawlor and Mia Joyce developed their own body of work, worked as curatorial assistants and were exhibited at This Must Be The Place exhibition.

Open Eye Hub is currently supporting Tree Stories Wigan – new project exploring the history of Wigan through its trees. This heritage initiative, funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, will celebrate communities and local nature through workshops, tree planting, school visits and outdoor photography exhibition.

Images: This Must Be The Place exhibition, photos by Sara Lawlor

Last chance to catch our current atrium photography stands exhibition – on til 3 August!“We’re telling our own story”: A...
30/07/2025

Last chance to catch our current atrium photography stands exhibition – on til 3 August!

“We’re telling our own story”: Advancing Reproductive Justice in Northern England

https://openeye.org.uk/whatson/were-telling-our-own-story-atrium-exhibition/

➡️ This exhibition includes photographs taken, captioned, and curated by members of ReproNorth, including people with lived experience of health and social inequity and representatives from local community organisations.

They showcase diverse voices yet tell a story of shared experiences:

➡️ Community and Society: Women are pressured to look or live a certain way, to have children, to embrace domesticity. Women are often children’s primary caregivers. At the same time, women may be infantilised and viewed as ‘vulnerable.’ So-called ‘women’s’ issues are not taken seriously enough.

➡️ Health: The photographers focus on very personal healthcare experiences and on community health and healthcare systems. The photos tell of potential gaps in healthcare and the lack of appropriate service provision.

➡️ Space: People occupy space both inside and outside the home. For some, housing was felt to be insecure, unsafe, and poorly adapted to families’ diverse needs.

➡️ Safety: Fears and barriers to safety are revealed in the photos. Photographers drew both on their lived realities and on research statistics to show how women and girls in the North West are affected by violence.

➡️ Women’s Voices: Through their photos, the photographers reclaim their agency and autonomy in a patriarchal society. They reclaim women’s power to make the decisions that are best for themselves.

➡️ What is Reproductive Justice?

Reproductive Justice centers on the rights to: control our bodies and our futures (bodily autonomy); not have a child; have a child; parent children with dignity in safe and healthy environments. Everyone has the same rights in principle, but not everyone has the same choices in practice.

Reproductive Justice considers how structural factors (such as our political systems and everyday social environments) limit reproductive ‘choices’ and highlights the experiences of overlooked, devalued, and marginalised populations.

➡️ What is ReproNorth?

ReproNorth is a network of academic, community organisation, and lived experience partners with a shared commitment to highlight and respond to inequities that compromise Reproductive Justice in the North of England.

Are you going to Liverpool's Pride? Catch our Qu**rs With Gears exhibition on the Digital Window Gallery before the marc...
24/07/2025

Are you going to Liverpool's Pride? Catch our Qu**rs With Gears exhibition on the Digital Window Gallery before the march!

This project by Cyrus Allen and Emily Collins hopes to give space to q***r friendships, emphasising the personal and considering their intimacy.

As two outsiders finding q***r community and friendship in Liverpool, their collective work explores these experiences and their moments of everyday intimacy as sites of solidarity, resistance and comfort.

Open Eye Gallery / Digital Window Gallery / 4 July – 31 July

➡️ https://openeye.org.uk/whatson/q***rs-with-gears-digital-window-gallery/

Taken in the garden of a group of friends amongst bikes, Emily’s figures are surrounded by movement yet appear perpetually in stillness and waiting. Similarly, Cyrus’ poetry aims to capture nostalgia and forge togetherness whilst acknowledging the liminal, volatile nature of both. Cyrus attends a local q***r cycling group (Qu**rs with Gears), which first led the creators to explore the concept of bikes as subject matter.

Qu**rs with Gears is a Liverpool based q***r cycling collective organising rides to encourage our community & create a fun empowering space for q***rs to connect on bikes.

Images by Emily Collins and Cyrus Allen

“Running a gallery isn’t as simple as booking in the photographers and asking them what they have in mind”: what do youn...
23/07/2025

“Running a gallery isn’t as simple as booking in the photographers and asking them what they have in mind”: what do young people think of the gallery?

We've had a student of the Whitby High School sixth form for a week of work experience with us, and we’re happy to share his impressions of the backstage of the gallery life.

💙 Liverpool couldn’t be a better home for Open Eye Gallery, as Liverpool’s community spirit is unmatched by almost any other city in Great Britain. Its diverse culture, with links all over the world and a distinct history, is perfect for a city known for its arts. At the same time, it has lots of grassroots and chances for people to come up. While Open Eye Gallery definitely benefits from being in Liverpool, I would argue that Liverpool itself benefits from Open Eye Gallery.

💙 Being a huge part of the local art scene, Open Eye Gallery gives a voice for the youth and wider community of Merseyside and the Wirral to allow local artists to express their vision and to potentially use it as a way of speaking about issues that are important to them. This is something I have personal experience with, having taken part in the 2025 What Makes Us exhibition, where my photography class at Whitby High School were able to create an exhibition of what community means to us.

💙 Running a gallery isn’t just running a business, it is creating a space that is safe and inclusive for everyone. It is being able to carry that on and apply it outside, further than the gallery walls. Choosing an exhibition is choosing who the project is aimed at and if it is relevant to them.

💙 Advice to young people pursuing art: Go out there and start making yourself known. This can be through volunteering, starting up an Instagram page, sending your photos to open calls and participating in events. After all, if your photos aren’t getting out there, no one is going to get the chance to see them.

Full article: https://openeye.org.uk/students-view-on-openeyegallery/

Open Eye Gallery has been working with long-standing partners Whitby High School, on What makes us. Nine students from Whitby High have produced their own individual photography projects for exhibition at Open Eye Gallery with the theme of ‘My Community’ in mind.

Images: What Makes Us: exhibition by the Whitby High School students. Photos by Bronwyn Andrews.

Spirit(s) of Dreams – explore the history of Garston on a family art trail this summer!Let the Garston Ghosties take you...
22/07/2025

Spirit(s) of Dreams – explore the history of Garston on a family art trail this summer!

Let the Garston Ghosties take you on a journey from Garston's distant past to the community’s hopes for the areas’ future – all seen through the eyes of children.

📅 21 Jul 2025 – 01 Sep 2025.

Spirit(s) of Dreams is the culmination of a two-year project between experimental photographer and multi-media artist Miriam Flüchter, children from the Venny (Garston Adventure Playground) and a few Garston grown-ups.

The exhibition consists of a 7 stop trail that will take you along St. Mary’s Road, Garstons High Street, beginning at the Village Motors building and culminating at the old Garston Empire.

Along the way you can have fun with family activities at the Coffee Vault and look out for “Garston Ghosties” – little characters that the children at the Venny have dreamt up, that represent the life spirit of their neighbourhood. Can you find them all?

The project looks at how architecture and infrastructure affect communities and encourages visitors to appreciate and celebrate the beauty of Garston and its working class history while using their imagination to dream up a colourful future for the area.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the children’s own illustrations, as well as illustrations, graphics and digital art by artist Evyn Seaton-Mooney.

Locations:
📍Village Motors (190-194 St Mary's Rd, Garston, L19 2JJ)
📍The Cheese Cellar (136-138 St Mary's Rd, L19 2JJ)
📍Laundrette (110 St. Mary's Road, L19 2JG)
📍Garston Garden Centre (71 St Mary's Rd, L19 2NL)
📍Topaz (Heald House, Heald St, L19 2LY)
📍 The Coffee Vault (78 St Mary's Rd, L19 2JG)
📍The Garston Empire (Chapel Rd, L19 5PA)

Images by Miriam Flüchter.

OPEN CALL FOR PHOTOGRAPHS: show your work at Open Eye Gallery!💥🔸Open Eye Gallery, with support from Liverpool City Regio...
14/07/2025

OPEN CALL FOR PHOTOGRAPHS: show your work at Open Eye Gallery!💥

🔸Open Eye Gallery, with support from Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, is seeking photographs depicting celebration, connection, futures, shared spaces, movement, and care.

🔸Winning entries will be chosen by a panel of judges and displayed at Open Eye Gallery at the Liverpool City Region Photo Awards 2025 in November.

🔸Category winners will be awarded £500, while those commended will receive a prize of £100.

📸 Entry is free. Images can be taken anywhere, at any time, but to enter you must live in the Liverpool City Region.

📸 Submit your work through Picter: https://site.picter.com/liverpool-city-region-photo-awards-2025

We can't wait to see your photos!

New exhibition: exploring the relationship between the Deaf experience and the hearing world.❤️ BSL Happy Snappers (a Wi...
03/07/2025

New exhibition: exploring the relationship between the Deaf experience and the hearing world.

❤️ BSL Happy Snappers (a Wirral-based photography group made up of both Deaf and BSL users) and socially engaged photographer Emma Case invite you to I'll Tell You Later – an exhibition that sheds light on the barriers D/deaf individuals face, while showing the Happy Snappers as a powerful example of how inclusive, supportive communities can break down these obstacles.

❤️ Through their work, the group highlights the importance of creating a more inclusive society that benefits everyone.

This exhibition at Williamson Art Gallery and Museum is an opportunity to engage in meaningful conversation through the lens of photography.

❤️ Launch: 17 July, 6–8pm
Exhibition continues: 18 July – 25 October
RSVP: https://www.floralpavilion.com/event/emma-case-happy-snappers/
Details: https://openeye.org.uk/whatson/ill-tell-you-later-williamson/

I’ll Tell You Later is part of Photo Here, a programme of socially engaged photographic residencies and exhibitions commissioned by Liverpool City Region Combined Authority as part of this year’s Cultural Events Programme. Developed by Open Eye Gallery in collaboration with local authorities.

We’re telling our own story: Advancing Reproductive Justice in Northern England​Photography stands exhibition in Open Ey...
02/07/2025

We’re telling our own story: Advancing Reproductive Justice in Northern England​

Photography stands exhibition in Open Eye Gallery Atrium

Exhibition launch: Tuesday 8 July, 5pm–7pm
RSVP: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/exhibition-launch-were-telling-our-own-story-tickets-1421255416209

Exhibition continues: 8 July – 3 August

The exhibition explores the role of place and community in Reproductive (in)Justice and encourages us to think about how local communities can advance Reproductive Justice and advocate for change. This exhibition includes photographs taken, captioned, and curated by members of ReproNorth, including people with lived experience of health and social inequity and representatives from local community organisations serving women with complex needs and people who are claiming asylum or have refugee status.

What is Reproductive Justice?

Reproductive Justice is centred on the core rights to: (1) control our bodies and our futures (bodily autonomy); (2) not have a child; (3) have a child; (4) parent children with dignity in safe and healthy environments. Reproductive Justice helps us consider how structural factors (such as our political systems and everyday social environments) limit reproductive ‘choices.’ While everyone has the same rights in principle, not everyone has the same choices in practice.

​What is ReproNorth?

ReproNorth is a network of academic, community organisation, and lived experience partners with a shared commitment to highlight and respond to health and social inequities that compromise Reproductive Justice in the North of England.

Image: Liza Caruana-Finkel, ReproNorth project workshop April 2025

TreeStory goes to Wigan!Flashes Festival TreeStory Workshops🌳 Sunday 6 July / 11am – 4pm / Pennington Flash, Leigh / fre...
01/07/2025

TreeStory goes to Wigan!

Flashes Festival TreeStory Workshops

🌳 Sunday 6 July / 11am – 4pm / Pennington Flash, Leigh / free, drop in

Join photographer Andy Yates for a drop in session exploring the TreeStory Wigan project. Whether you’re involved with local nature and community groups or simply curious to discover what TreeStory is all about, this session welcomes everyone. Read personal stories from local residents about their favourite trees, have a go at writing your own, and experience TreeStory firsthand through creative photography and writing activities. Group leaders and active participants will discover practical ways to use these unique resources to deepen connection with nature, place, and community in their own activities, while all visitors can explore new ways to connect with Wigan’s incredible trees and green spaces.

Drop in anytime 11am–4pm, no booking required, and all abilities welcome.

🌳 Flashes Festival Photowalks: See Pennington Flash in a new light

Sunday 6 July / 1.30 pm and 3 pm / Pennington Flash, Leigh / free, book your spot: https://treestory-wigan-photowalks.eventbrite.co.uk/

Photowalks with photographer Lizzie King and former miner Alan Davies at the Flashes Festival of Nature. Lizzie will share her thoughts on photographing trees whilst Alan outlines the heritage of this fascinating site. Bring your own camera or phone.

Walks will be 40-45 mins duration on accessible pathways. Age 11+. Meet at the Visitor Centre.

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Opening Hours

Tuesday 10:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 10:00 - 17:00
Thursday 11:00 - 16:00
Friday 11:00 - 16:00
Saturday 11:00 - 16:00
Sunday 11:00 - 16:00

Telephone

0151 236 6768

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WHO ARE WE?

WHY WE'RE HERE

We believe photography is for everyone and can be meaningful, informing our present and inspiring positive futures.

Open Eye Gallery works with people to explore photography’s unique ability to connect, to tell stories, to inquire, to reflect on humanity’s past and present, and to celebrate its diversity and creativity.

Right now, we’re working towards becoming a more useful gallery for all, and developing socially engaged photography practice both locally and internationally.