Communities across the UK share stories through photography, art and museum collections in this new major touring exhibition.

Join us for the launch of New Faces, New Focus: Stories We Share, a collaborative touring exhibition bringing together new creative work by artists and community participants alongside objects and artworks from three museums collections across the UK.

Created by Open Eye Gallery in partnership with Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Council and Aberdeenshire Council’s Museums Service, the exhibition is part of Art Fund’s Going Places programme – a series of 12 exhibitions touring the UK, created by museums working together to share and celebrate their collections in collaboration with local communities.

Developed through residencies in Liverpool City Region, Armagh and Aberdeenshire, the exhibition explores the theme of journeys, identity and home through the voices of local communities whose stories have not always been represented in museum collections – including those with lived experience of migration and displacement.

In Liverpool City Region, three socially engaged photographers have worked with communities to create new work inspired by local collections and participants’ own experiences; Anoosh Ariamehr worked with communities in Knowsley, Nina Karetska with displaced Ukrainian community in Sefton, and Abdullrhman Hassona with communities in St Helen's supported by Cafe Laziz. Their projects have been developed in partnership with Kirkby Gallery (Knowsley), The Atkinson (Sefton), and The World of Glass (St Helen’s), where the work will also be exhibited.

Across all three locations, participants have worked alongside artists, curators and museum teams to explore the theme of journeys – from migration and exile to the milestones, traditions and celebrations that shape our lives – creating new work inspired by museum collections and their own experiences of place, identity and home.

At its heart, New Faces New Focus enables communities to tell their own stories through a process of co-creation and co-curation, and explore how these stories relate to local histories, collections and archives.

In our Gallery 3 (upstairs), we will also be launching Next Up-2026, an annual graduate exhibition of work from the MA in Socially Engaged Photography course, a joint programme Open Eye Gallery runs with the University of Salford. This year, it features work by Yaqeen Amir, Ella Horniman, Jack Smith, and Helen Constantinou in partnership with Homotopia (Contemporary Fine Art MA).

Going Places is an Art Fund programme made possible with major support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and The Julia Rausing Trust, with additional support from a generous group of trusts, foundations and individuals. Art Fund is continuing to fundraise to reach the full potential of the programme and make the biggest impact for museums and visitors across the UK.

Description supplied by the event organiser.