OPEN CALL FOR SOCIALLY-ENGAGED PHOTOGRAPHER.
Fixed fee: £10,000
Deadline: 10am Monday 7th July 2025
University of Salford Art Collection with RHS Garden Bridgewater, Open Eye Gallery, Salford Youth Service, and Salford Museum & Art Gallery
The University of Salford is working in partnership with RHS Garden Bridgewater (RHSGB), Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool and Salford Youth Service to widen access to and engagement with nature through the medium of photography. We have secured Arts Council England (ACE) project grant funding to support a socially engaged photographer to work with Salford Youth Service and up to 4 groups of young people between September 2025 and October 2026.
Background:
University of Salford and Open Eye Gallery have a strong track record of collaborative working including includes developing a joint Masters programme in Socially Engaged Photography. We delivered a socially engaged artist in residence with the Collection in 2021/22 (Gwen Riley Jones; who developed work with Salford Youth Council) and worked again with Salford Youth Service on the Is Anybody Listening project in 2023.
The University of Salford Art Collection has also established a partnership with RHS Gardens Bridgewater – which is hosting its first joint artist in residence programme with the photographer Yan Wang Preston. With funding from Arts Council England we are working with 2 socially engaged photographers Anoosh Ariamehr and Fiona Robinson to develop projects with the health and wellbeing and community grow gardens at RHS Garden Bridgewater.
The opportunity:
We are now looking for a socially engaged photographer (or socially engaged artist focussing on photography) to work with young people from Salford Youth Service and to engage with them with nature through the RHSGB and the broader residency programme.
The selected candidate will work with SYS who have identified the following 4 groups:
- NEET (Not in education, employment or training – across Salford)
- Salford Youth Council (across Salford)
- Little Hulton and Walkden Youth Group
- Eccles and Winton Youth Group
SYS will support the selected photographer with a dedicated youth work worker and assistant supporting all activity. 10 digital cameras will be available for use.
Objectives:
- Introducing or improving photography-based skills for local young people
- Supporting young people to visit and connect with new places (RHS, Salford Museum, campus)
- Encouraging young people to think about issues around nature, environment, sustainability and wellbeing
- Creating space and time for young people to express what’s important to them
- Sharing young people’s voices with a public audience (format TBC – may be e.g. digital blogs, publication, visual outcome, presence in planned events/exhibitions programmes).
What we are looking for / what to expect:
A socially engaged photographer with demonstrable interest in nature and the environment and experience of working with young people. Our young people are mainly from low socio economic backgrounds and have diverse needs including low confidence and neurodiversity.
We anticipate:
- Approximately 40 days delivery, based on site (across Salford) with SYS and 4 groups of young people. Based on 10 sessions per group – including a minimum of 2 visits to RHSGB, and 1 visit to Salford Museum and Art Gallery (Oct 26)
- 2 groups taking place from mid Sept 25, and 2 groups from April 26
- Approximately 10 days planning and preparation, and contributing to evaluation and communications and events (symposium Oct 26)
There is also potential to:
- present work or documentation publicly at RHSGB (summer 26), Salford Museum and Art Gallery (Oct 26), UOSAC or OEG, or online at the end of the project.
- engage with students of MA Socially Engaged Practice at UoS
- engage with the UOSAC
The successful candidate will be required to pass a DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check (enhanced with children’s barred list) in order to be able to take up the role, or be registered with the DBS Update Service in order for an employer check to be carried out.
You will also be committed to working in or developing environmentally sustainable practices.
We recognise that the project will develop and change over the year and our staff teams will support you in embracing opportunities as the project evolves.
Fees and expenses:
Fee: Fixed artist fee of £10,000 to include all expenses and any VAT if payable.
Payable in quarterly instalments.
This is based on a programme of activity from Sept 25 – Oct 26 – approx. 40 days across the 4 groups, plus 10 days for planning, preparation, and contribution to communications, evaluation and events (symposium). We anticipate that the work will happen mainly in autumn and spring when the weather is better for outdoor activity and when the gardens will be at their most interesting.
Costs: there is an additional budget available of up to £3400 to cover all additional costs such as transport, refreshments and materials for working with SYS.
There is potentially up to a further £2000 available for legacy. This could cover time/material costs such as: printing/framing and presentation at a public venue (eg at Youth Centre or Salford Museum and Art Gallery), making books or objects to take home at end of project, digital skills to present work online.
You will also receive organisational support from the University of Salford Art Collection team and partners as well as marketing reach for the project.
Reporting:
Line Manager and first point of contact: Stephanie Fletcher, Curator, UOS
Lead contact at SYS: Rob Fulton
Lead contact at OEG: Sarah Fisher
Lead contact at RHSGB: Daniel Atherton
APPLICATION PROCESS:
To apply:
- Please send us your CV along with a letter explaining your interest in this position and how you might approach the role (1-2 pages maximum).
- Please include a selection of images of your work or include links to work online.
- Please send your application in standard file formats (e.g Word, PDF and JPEG). Please do not send very large files or Wetransfer/Dropbox/etc links as these may not reach our inbox.
Send your application to artcollection@salford.ac.uk
With the subject line “SEP SYS Residency 2025”
Application Deadline: 10am Monday 7th July
Interviews: Tuesday 22nd July
Accessibility:
If you have access needs and wish to discuss these in relation to the application and interview stage, or the opportunity more broadly, please contact: artcollection@salford.ac.uk
We are committed to equal opportunities and will work with the successful selected applicants to support access requirements through reasonable adjustments during the programme. Where disclosures are made and access needs are identified, this will be discussed in more detail with selected candidates after interview stage.
We actively encourage people from diverse backgrounds to apply. We fully recognise the value of a team that is made up of diverse skills, experiences and abilities.
FURTHER INFORMATION: (click to drop-down)
About University of Salford Art Collection
The University of Salford Art Collection is a modest but ambitious collection of modern and contemporary art, founded in 1968 and actively collecting new work through commissions & co-commissions. The collection team work with artists at a range of career levels and collect diverse work across four three thematic strands: About the Digital, From the North, Chinese Contemporary Art. We also programme widely across issues of nature, sustainability, and environment. The Collection supports students, graduates, emerging and established artists through artist development programmes, residencies and collaborations; and reaches audiences through events, exhibitions and more. Read more across the website: artcollection.salford.ac.uk
About Salford Youth Service
The youth service is an informal education service, working with young people aged 11 to 25 years, to ensure every young person in Salford reaches their full potential.
The youth workers support young people’s personal and social development as they move on from childhood to become responsible young adults.
The aims of the youth service are:
- To ensure young people to have a say in decisions affecting them and a voice in their community
- To improve their health and wellbeing
- To support their people’s education, learning and routes to employment and to keep them safe and reduce risk taking behaviour
Each young person is an individual, with different needs and aspirations, so we provide informal activities and youth work programmes, in youth centres, detached work, specialist projects, one to one work and groups, in schools or with other partners.
Our youth workers work alongside young people, building positive relationships based on trust and respect. This enables them to deliver programmes of work that are flexible, and responsive to the needs of young people.
The youth service is based on a commitment to equality and young people’s active participation and empowerment.
About RHS
Since our formation in 1804, the RHS has grown into the UK’s leading gardening charity, touching the lives of millions of people. Perhaps the secret to our longevity is that we’ve never stood still. In the last decade alone we’ve taken on the largest hands-on project the RHS has ever tackled by opening the new RHS Garden Bridgewater in Salford, Greater Manchester, and invested in the science that underpins all our work by building RHS Hilltop – The Home of Gardening Science.
We have committed to being net positive for nature and people by 2030. We are also committed to being truly inclusive and to reflect all the communities of the UK.
Across our five RHS gardens we welcome more than three million visitors each year to enjoy over 34,000 different cultivated plants. Events such as the world famous RHS Chelsea Flower Show, other national shows, our schools and community work, and partnerships such as Britain in Bloom, all spread the shared joy of gardening to wide-reaching audiences.
Throughout it all we’ve held true to our charitable core – to encourage and improve the science, art, and practice of horticulture – to share the love of gardening and the positive benefits it brings.
For more information visit www.rhs.org.uk
About Open Eye Gallery
Open Eye Gallery is developing a national lead on Socially Engaged Photography Practice, (SEPP) including coordinating a national network of SEPP practitioners and photography organisations, supporting international practice development, as well as managing a significant programme of SEPP residencies with a wide range of partners, which currently includes 16 residencies, based in a range of contexts from neighbourhood initiatives, to NHS programmes and Novus, a national education provider in prisons, to one with Energy House, based in the University of Salford. More broadly we develop exhibitions, learning programmes, publications and events in our gallery, and in partner venues locally and internationally, we have a growing digital programme as well as running LOOK Photo Biennial.
Image credits:
1) Former artist in residence Gwen Riley Jones with youth group Action for Conservation
2) RHS Garden Bridgewater © RHS / Lee Charlton
3) Salford Youth Service workshop, photo courtesy Gwen Riley Jones