MANCHESTER OPEN

HOME, Manchester | 3rd February – 28 April 2024

My photograph The Deansgate was selected for the Manchester Open 2024 at HOME. The exhibition brought together artists from across Greater Manchester working in photography, painting, sculpture, film and other forms, filling the gallery with different ways of seeing the region.

The Deansgate is part of my wider Places Nowhere series. It reflects my interest in the ordinary moments that give a city its character: a person passing through, the light on a building, a familiar street seen differently for an instant. Showing the photograph in Manchester gave it another life beyond the series in which it was made, among works by artists responding to their own places and experiences.

The HOME exhibition overlapped with my first solo show at Gallery Oldham. Having work in both spaces at the same time was an important moment in my development as a photographer. It allowed one image from a personal project to become part of a much wider conversation about creativity in Greater Manchester.

What I valued most about the Manchester Open was its range. Visitors could move between artists, materials and ideas without being asked to see the city through a single perspective. I was pleased that The Deansgate could contribute one view of a place many people know, and perhaps encourage them to look at it again.