UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD ART COLLECTION - NEW ADELPHI EXHIBITION GALLERY

We are excited to announce that this January our partners at Open Eye Gallery Liverpool are exhibiting LOOK Climate Lab, a biennial programme exploring how photography can be a relevant and powerful medium for talking about climate change. At Open Eye, the gallery is being transformed into a lab, bringing together researchers, activists and artists to test their ideas, and encouraging our audiences to discuss systematic changes needed for dealing with the climate crisis. This year’s programme will focus on gardens and how people connect with green spaces. Max Gorbatskyi, Open Eye Gallery’s curator, has said: "From memorials to places to hang out with friends, from horticultural perfection to an accidental hedge near your house or a tree that brings back memories, we examine the role plants play in our lives, and how our lives shape theirs." This exhibition is part of our OFFSHOOT project, a collaboration between University of Salford Art Collection, RHS Garden Bridgewater and Open Eye Gallery and generously supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. At LOOK Climate Lab, socially engaged photographers Fiona Robinson, Anoosh Ariamehr and Liz Lock are displaying their images and activity from working at RHS Garden Bridgewater with different groups from the Salford community, including youth groups, wellbeing and community groups. Meanwhile, artist Yan Wang Preston will share her explorations and experiments in response to the oldest tree at RHS Bridgewater. This magnificent sweet chestnut tree, estimated to be 300 years old, stands on the historical grounds of RHS Bridgewater. Her research includes the question: if trees are memory keepers, what might this tree recollect from the past three centuries? OFFSHOOT is an expansive project, and there will be plenty more opportunities to engage with exhibitions, talks and events over the coming year. Visit the OFFSHOOT website for more information.