A new arts project in Sefton challenges young people to use photography and fashion as a tool for championing social and environmental rights, and explore how images can be used to agitate.
Open Eye Gallery is delighted to be working with long-standing collaborators Sefton New Beginnings youth group, The Atkinson (Southport) and two new artists in residence, Ocean Farini and Sally Gilford on Fashion Forms Protest. Together they will work to produce their own series of fashion items for public display in Spring 2021.
For this new project, the young people have decided to focus on a previous exhibition at the Atkinson, Westwood, as the starting point to explore the role of fashion and photography in society today.
The exhibition celebrated the design work of Vivienne Westwood, one of the last independent global fashion companies in the world. Westwood continues to capture the imagination, and raise awareness of environmental and human rights issues through her work.
With a design record spanning over forty years, Vivienne Westwood is now recognized as a global brand and Westwood herself as one of the most influential fashion designers, and activists, in the world today.
Sefton New Beginnings, a group of young people dedicated to tackling youth social issues, will take on the challenge of creating their own photography, fashion garments and a public programme of events.
Through these, they seek to highlight the issues whilst also exploring positive solutions to current environmental and human rights for the next generation. What role can fashion and photography play for our future? New Beginnings intend to find out with their two artists in residence.