When Where ?

Project dates – January – March 2013

Exhibition dates – Wednesday 20th March 2013  and also at Look 13 (Liverpool Photography Festival) June 2013

Funded by – Photovoice

About the project

Nottingham Photographers’ Hub worked in partnership with the Photovoice charity to encourage and support young people across the UK to speak out about issues that affect them and other young people in their community.  The project was part of a national Photovoice project with Catch 22 London, FACT Liverpool, FARE Glasgow, LIVE Magazine, Media Trust, Nottingham Photographers’ Hub, Waltham Forest Community Safety, Z-Arts Manchester.

Since June 2010 UK-based international charity PhotoVoice has been working with young people from all backgrounds across the UK providing free training in digital photography and offering opportunities for young people to amplify their voices in the debate around youth issues. The first phase of this project, Lookout London, included groups of young people in supported housing in Walthamstow and Homerton, and focused on the issues of gangs and knife crime in London. Click here for more details about the project and where the work was shown. Throughout 2012 and 2013 PhotoVoice ran workshops with hundreds more young people in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Glasgow and more, to support them to speak out about issues they feel strongly about through photography, music, spoken word.

Throughout 2013 photos and words by young people about all sorts of issues affecting youth in the UK were showcased via youth media websites and magazines (including features in 3 consecutive issues of LIVE Magazine), viral internet campaigns and national press.

A Lookout Youth Conference at FACT in Liverpool in June 2013 was a chance for young people from the North of England and beyond to come together to discuss some of the issues and attitudes raised in the photographs and captions produced. The Conference featured a photographic exhibition, multimedia screenings, photography workshops and a keynote panel debate tackling the issues facing young people in modern day Britain. Young people were invited to participate whether they have been involved in the Lookout project or not. Booking (free) will open in February 2013. The day ended with a social event for young people, with live music and spoken word performances.

The outcome of the Liverpool conference was the beginnings of a ‘youth manifesto’ containing testimonies, perspectives and recommendations for the government and local authorities from young people. This document was worked on and added to by young people throughout the Lookout campaign in 2013 and the finished manifesto presented at a follow-up youth conference in London in September 2013.

You can get further information about Photovoice here