THE OPEN EYE GALLERY

THE OPEN EYE GALLERY” was opened in 1977 in Liverpool. It was one of the first photography galleries to open in the UK. Funding came from charitable organizations including the Arts Council of England and Merseyside Arts. Exhibitions at “The Open Eye” include the work of regional, national and international photographers. The Gallery particularly encourages educational skills. The mission statement expresses their aim to “make people aware of the many positive ways in which film, photography, video and sound recording can be used in social, cultural and educative context.” The Gallery published its own magazine – “Open Eye Magazine” from January 1979 to December 1981.

Recent exhibitions organized by “Open Eye” have been held on the waterfront.“TheWater’s Edge” was an exhibition of photographs of many different women working on the Liverpool waterfront in many different occupations – dockers, port police, sex workers, painters, crane operators, pub landladies, hostesses, cooks and social workers. This exhibition was organized by writer and researcher Joanne Lacey who was inspired by talks with her grandmother who reminisced about her time working as a ship’s cleaner in the 1950’s

The most recent exhibition was called “Bound” and the subject matter for this was the story of slavery – from the slave trade to modern day bondage. In my opinion, the most moving images from the “Bound” exhibition were a series of documentary photographs of Nazi work camps taken by the Dutch artist Martin Effert whilst traveling from Amsterdam through Germany into Poland. He explored the camps which had been established during the genocide of World War II, 1939 – 1945. His work shows how nature has encroached on the remains of the horrific camps so that they are now hardly visible to the naked eye. They have reverted back to a pure natural state.

The documentary photographs of Martin Effert are typical of his house style as he always favours showing pieces of land which are largely occupied by vegetation. Even when he shows urban landscapes in his photographs these are ones chosen because they are in the process of returning back to their natural state.

For these documentary photographs, he used large format cameras and a wide angle lens to encapsulate a large panoramic view. In one of the photographs he altered the saturation levels so it appears to be a black and white photograph but if the viewer looks closely he will see it is not completely black and white.

Bibliography

“Open Eye” website
“Open Eye” curator
www.stills.org/residents/nickybird
http://www.martineffert.nl/
http://boundexhibition.com/artists/martin-effert