Launch: 17 September / 6–8pm / Open Eye Gallery / free, RSVP 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. Tadhgh 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 is based around the printed publications: ‘Print’s Not Dead’ and ‘1922.’
For ‘1922’ the artist ran the workshops with and for people of North Manchester who are underrepresented in Manchester's creative success story and lack access to creative opportunities which is the same ethos as the magazine.
‘Print's Not Dead’ is a collaborative zine made across different workshops in North Manchester. Participants were invited to attend sessions where they got a chance to collage and make moodboards, do some creative writing and have a go at both film and digital photography while creating their own personal magazine concepts. They talked about class, identity, neurodivergence and creativity – and most of all they had a laugh.
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.