Liz Wewiora, Head of Social Practice Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool
This Blog related to a COIN presentation in November 2022 on Socially Embedded Photography https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJKdHEUioJ8
An Ecology of Care was an exhibition at Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool, 2022), which showcased key examples of the gallery’s collaborative work with health and care partner across the North West of England.
In this COIN presentation, discussion is drawn towards three distinct socially engaged photography projects, which highlight the challenges facing the health and care sector in recent years, but also celebrates the resilience of those who work or engage within the sector. When using the term socially engaged photography, Open Eye Gallery is exploring projects which bring the expertise of a photographer with the lived experiences of specific communities or communities of interest together. It is hoped that by co-authoring the ideas and imagery behind a project, individual’s voices are clearly heard and work is made WITH people not simply ABOUT them.
In the project, Bound/ Frayed, photographer Tadhg Devlin worked with a number of staff and individuals from the North West who accessed the services of Community Integrated Care, a national social care charity, over the Covid19 pandemic. Together they co-authored images which represent the experience of working in the care sector in some of the most challenging times, whilst also celebrating the everyday work to support people who access social care which can often be hidden from the public. The work started with Zoom calls during lockdown, which led to many of the images being created outdoors whilst many of the restrictions were still in place. The work aimed to act as counterpoint to the press and social media representations of the sector during this time.
Tadhg Devlin also worked with a number of individuals from Merseyside Dementia Networks and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust to produce Across the Kitchen Table (Who is the Community?)
Within society there is often a negative assumption that dementia is only associated with loss. The conversations and images captured in this work challenge this belief and demonstrate the importance of maintaining existing relationships, and developing new ones, following a diagnosis of dementia.
The work included a video piece of the groups having honest conversations in pairs (whether this be pairs of friends, carers or NHS staff), where they speak passionately about the importance of meeting others in the same position as themselves, their peers, and the transformational impact this could have on quality of life. They highlighted the many benefits of coming together to offer insight, share experiences, perspectives and the difficulties of some of the issues around dementia.
By discussing the positives of coming together and forming strong supportive relationships the group hopes to raise awareness and to initiate conversations in other parts of the country to form similar groups, make connections and to offer support for those who can often be overlooked. An ‘activity booklet’ and sculpture representing a social ecology theory (which informed the thinking behind the work) were also presented in the hope this will help others in the future and to show the power of bringing people together.
The final element of the project was a series of distorted images representing the reality of how Dementia can affect individuals every day lives, from trying to make a cup of tea to crossing the road. The images were an intentional visual overload to audiences members to try and replicate the feelings of those living with the condition.
The exhibition champions participants and community collaborators who have spoken honestly and passionately about their own experiences and approaches to living healthier and happier lives, regardless of challenges they face.
The third project, Holding Time was a socially engaged feminist art piece creating a portrait of breastfeeding by photographic artist Lisa Creagh. Commissioned by Improving Me, the NHS Cheshire and Merseyside’s Women and Children’s Partnership, the Holding Time Project aimed to overturn preconceptions, challenge stereotypes and improve breastfeeding rates in the local area. Local mothers were invited to share their experiences in video interviews and participate in writing workshops and a photo shoot. Across audio, video, animation and stills, the mothers discuss breastfeeding in all its complexity, calling into question the barriers that still mean many women who want to breastfeed stop before they are ready.
Alongside these three main project was a series of publication based works exploring themes of loneliness vs living alone in Over60s by Vilija Subkute, Photography as a tool for mindfulness by Joseph Lee (both graduates of the unique MA in socially engaged photography course at the University of Salford), and a separate collaboration between Tadhg Devlin and carer Amelia, about her experience of caring for her mother with Dementia.
The COIN presentation raised questions about longer term impact of how and where these projects are disseminated, beyond the gallery walls. It also opened up dialogue about how culture and health and care collaborations can ensure best use of shared resources and embedding sustainable intergrated approaches to primary care, beyond shorter term project funding.
Care and community have become ‘buzz words’ in recent years, but the projects in this exhibiton attempted to highlight the genuine power of collective discussion, action and use of photography as a tool for expressing people’s lived experiences in relation to health and social care.