Stephanie Wynne and The Group from Crosby Camera Club
Celebration Event: 14 June, 12pm–2pm, Crosby Library
Members of Crosby Camera Club have set out to discover the feel of Sefton – the streets, fields, green spaces, coast and places where day to day life takes place. They enthusiastically roamed across the borough embracing the principles of psychogeography – how location affects emotions and behaviour – responding through photography to locations across the length and breadth of the borough that are familiar and less familiar. The group are confident photographers who collaborated with artist in residence Stephanie Wynne, to expand their ideas about photography and to challenge themselves to create pictures that reflect their new ways of seeing. Explore the exhibition, see what they saw, and enjoy a wander through Sefton.
Photographers: June Poston, Andrew Dunford, Duncan Reid, Paul Baker, Cathy Rigby, Andy Joynson, Stephen Lang, Sue Williamson, Paul Ryan, Graham Liu, Patrick Doherty, Chris Hands.
Stephanie Wynne has worked as a commissioned photographer for over 25 years. She formed the partnership McCoy Wynne with Stephen McCoy and they collaborate on commercial assignments and personal projects. Stephanie’s primary interest in photography is in the broad subject areas of landscape and the built environment, particularly the impacts of environmental change. She has enjoyed a varied career including teaching photography in both further and higher education. Her career has been informed and enriched by her innate interest in people and the environment. In recent years she has expanded her practise by drawing on skills and expertise to produce collaborative, socially engaged projects.
Not All Who Wander Are Lost is part of Photo Here, 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 each of six local authorities: Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral.
Image: Stephen Lang
Anoosh Ariamehr and Communities of Welcome
Celebration: 19 June, 1pm–3pm, The Kirkby Centre
Since January 2025, artist-in-residence Anoosh Ariamehr has been working weekly with a group of Knowsley residents at Huyton Library. Through weekly workshops, Anoosh has supported the group to develop their skills as photographers and artists via workshops, gallery visits and discussion.
The group – Communities of Welcome – became a space for people from diverse cultural and social backgrounds to celebrate their own differences and commonalities. Over several months, the group have used photography to explore their local area, encourage each other and to highlight their own lived experiences of locality and displacement.
Each person brings their own unique history and experiences to a place. This exhibition tells personal stories of connection, identity and place. When these stories are shared, they help us build stronger, more cohesive communities.
Participants: Angela Donnelly, Nataliia Dzhemailova, Sue Emery, Anastasiia Holovach, Andrew Johnson, Semanur Kelesoglu and Jim Stuart.
Anoosh Ariamehr is a socially engaged artist based in Knowsley, whose work focuses on social justice and storytelling. He uses photography as a universal language to bring people together.
Communities of Welcome 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 each of six local authorities: Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral.
Image: Andrew Johnson
Abdullrhman Hassona and Cafe Laziz
Celebration: 15 June 12pm–2pm at World of Glass
Socially engaged photographer Abdullrhman Hassona and members of Cafe Laziz have collaborated to show the diverse culture of St Helens through portraits of people with different immigration and residence statuses. Each image is an introduction to a resident of St Helens and the stories that make a town feel rich with history and experience.
This exhibition is about the places where people pass time, pass on knowledge and practice skills while waiting for the documents and decisions that will change their lives. These can appear at any time and will radically influence each person’s relationship to place. Every day and every building has the potential to be monumental but until then, every day and every building is a waiting room.
The photographs represent people from 13 countries and feature messages in 8 different languages.
Abdullrhman Hassona is an Egyptian visual artist based in St. Helens. A mixed-media social documentarian and educator, he is passionate about capturing people’s stories and representing diverse cultures through photography and film.
Waiting Rooms 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 each of six local authorities: Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens and Wirral.
Image by Abdullrhman Hassona
The Williamson Open is BACK for 2025! Our much-loved annual exhibition showcases the best in art and photography made by artists across the Liverpool City Region.
Submissions open 2nd July, and the exhibition will open 10th October.
For full details on how to apply, please visit the dedicated webpage in the link below.
Info for the Williamson Open (Entry will be available from 2nd July)
Artist announcements coming soon
Broken Grey Wires’ mission is to create ambitious and inclusive projects where artists with mental health challenges and/or neurodivergent individuals are empowered through creative opportunities.
Their unique approach stems from our leadership, which includes individuals with lived experiences of mental health challenges, disability and neurodivergence – ensuring that radical empathy and authenticity drive their work. Over the years, they have curated ground-breaking visual art exhibitions that push the boundaries of communication, depicting the nuanced experiences of mental health in ways that resonate deeply with audiences and participants alike.
By continuously engaging with audiences, they encourage people to dismantle the stigma around mental health with confidence, autonomy and encouragement.
Part of Independents Biennial 2025
Independents Biennial 2025
In this free exhibition, Mohamed Gohar utilises his artistic visual language alongside architectural and heritage experiences.
He examines the dynamics of present-day Alexandrian society and their influence on the evolution of the city’s urban and built environment. The aim is to observe and analyse the communal behaviours of the city users, focusing on fostering an objective understanding of the changing values and cultures.
The exhibition runs throughout the festival’s duration.
Join us for an informal artist talk (and a complimentary hot or soft drink!) on Wednesday 16 July, at 4pm.
Free Entry
Venue:
Yamama Café & Bar, 31-32 Parliament St, Liverpool L8 5RW
Following on from a debut group exhibition at Cass Art in 2022, this new display shares a range of works exploring the diverse interests of Studio Me artists including nature, pop culture and architecture. The works show the variety of media the artists have explored in their supported studio at the Bluecoat, including painting, collage, printing making and pastels
Studio Me is a development of Blue Room, the Bluecoat’s long-running inclusive arts project. The project supports learning disabled and neurodivergent artists to develop their creative practice and share work with new audiences.
Exhibiting artists are Laura Aquilina, Alfred Beesley, Tess Gilmartin, Joshua Henderson, Andrew Mellor, William Richardson, Tom Rooney, Ottman Said, Jean Smith, John Steele, Norman Tomlinson, Jane Walsh, and Veronica Watson.
Location: Cass Art, 18 School Lane, Liverpool, L1 3BT
Open Mon-Sat, 10am-6pm & Sun, 11am-5pm. Free entry.
Petros Moris explores how fragments of history can help us think differently about the future, transforming remnants of the past into symbols of renewal.
The ‘ALONE’ project is inspired by a personal encounter which the artist had in an abandoned urban playground in his home city of Lamia, Greece – a site that was left unbuilt due to archaeological discoveries. Here he found a marble tile mosaic crafted by his parents in 1985 which had been painted over by a local graffiti artist with the word ‘ALONE’.
Moris was fascinated by how this intervention transformed the original work into a multilayered artefact comprising the work of different people, raising questions about authorship and collaboration, and of the fates of urban spaces, craft traditions and personal heritage. He continues and builds upon this legacy through ‘ALONE’ – the outer layers of these recent works are tiled with discarded marble stone which he collected from his parents’ mosaic studio.
Created using a mixture of digital fabrication and traditional techniques, the hybrid shape and animalistic forms of these five sculptures combine and layer different attributes, including references to ancient artefacts which are exhibited in an archaeological museum in his hometown.
Further works from the ‘ALONE’ series are exhibited across other Liverpool Biennial 2025 venues Bluecoat and Walker Art Gallery.
Courtesy of the artist, with thanks to TAVROS, Athens.
Isabel Nolan draws inspiration from a diverse range of different sources to create her artwork, including religious relics, architectural plans, literary and historical figures, and human and animal behaviour. These artistic investigations are driven by intensive research, but the result is always deeply personal and open to different interpretations.
Built in 1813, St Nicholas’ stood on Copperas Hill and served as Liverpool’s Catholic Pro-Cathedral until 1967 – the upright section of Nolan’s work is loyal to the original tracery of the east window. The other half is geometric – reminiscent of the windows in Lutyen’s Crypt, which sits beneath the Metropolitan Cathedral. The Crypt is all that remains of an earlier design for the building, after plans were redeveloped following financial issues due to the Second World War.
Lying here on its side, the piece might evoke ideas of architectural ruins, yet the bright colours – a nod to stained glass and industrial steelwork palettes – suggest possibility and ambition. For Nolan, the piece attempts to claim space for these buildings that have ultimately been lost, or which represent that which was never realised – repurposing something once functional to reflect on rich histories of Liverpool. The piece draws not only the past and present, but also the real and imagined, together.
This work is temporarily located at the John Lennon Art and Design Building at Liverpool John Moores University.
Further work by this artist is located at The Walker Art Gallery.
Courtesy of the artist and Kerlin Gallery. Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial, with support from Art Fund and Culture Ireland.
Anna Gonzalez Noguchi’s art practice is informed by her cross-cultural heritage, particularly her relationship with her Japanese grandparents, who often inspire the materials used in her work. She attempts to preserve fragmented memories and experiences from her childhood – including their glitches and inconsistencies – as a way of identifying with her biography and heritage.
The artist combines machine and hand-made objects, some of which are found and some created new. She layers them on top of one another to give them new life and purpose, referencing how our memories can often change or take on new meaning over time. The works have a nostalgic quality, reminding us of both treasured family mementos and kitsch souvenirs. A continuous presence in the artist’s works are references to plants and fruits, including cut-outs from her grandfather’s gardening magazines and buttons in the shape of flowers. These botanical symbols act as a metaphor or memorial to the impermanence and fluidity of identity.
A major outdoor sculpture by the artist is exhibited at Mann Island.
Courtesy of the artist.
