Liverpool through a lens hits the small screen

Published by Jon Land for Riverside Group in Housing and also in Communities, Education

A documentary about a photography exhibition that looks at Liverpool through the eyes of its migrants is being shown on Liverpool, Capital of Culture TV next week.

The exhibition, titled Diverse City, was commissioned by The Riverside Group to mark its 80th anniversary in Merseyside and celebrate Liverpool’s status as European Capital of Culture.

Portraits of tenants and staff of the social housing and regeneration organisation sit alongside recognisable faces such as photographer and musician Mike McCartney and playwright Alan Bleasdale as well as asylum seekers and the homeless. The portraits tell a tale of the city through individual experiences of those who have moved into and out of Liverpool.

The documentary was made by students on a Light Up My Street course run by Open Culture. The course is a community project which intends to help unemployed people get a practical introduction to enterprise culture.

The documentary was the brainchild of John Thomas, 43. The 12 students on the course were invited to submit an idea for a community related documentary and John’s idea was one of two chosen to be committed to film.

John, who himself is an ‘adopted Scouser’ having been born in Yorkshire and moved to Liverpool in 1993, said: “I read about Diverse City on a listings guide on the internet and loved the sound of it. My first response was that the photos were wonderful but once I started reading the text the photos took on a different dimension and you could start to see the stories in the photos. There is a really good mix of people and there are some really warm stories about Liverpool.”

The documentary features an interview with one of the subjects of the exhibition Emma Folan, a service user of homelessness charity The Whitechapel Centre; Hugh Owen, Director of Policy and Communications at The Riverside Group; and Polly O’Gorman, one of the Upton Hall School students who recorded the subjects personal memories of the city to accompany the portraits.

Emma, 34, spent nearly three years in hostels and was supported by The Whitechapel Centre to move into her own tenancy with Riverside Housing so when asked to choose a place of significance to have her portrait taken she chose the entrance to her flat.

She said: “My good experiences are moving from hostel accommodation into my own tenancy. I am really settled here.”

Hugh said: “When we started out 80 years ago in the slums of Liverpool there was appalling deprivation in the city. We have grown since those early days to become one of the largest national providers of affordable housing. But it’s a shame that despite our progress there is still poverty and deprivation in Liverpool, so our work to regenerate and improve neighbourhoods and lives is still as critical today as it was in 1928.”

The documentary is being shown on sky channel 166 and www.information.tv at 12.30pm from Monday 22 December until Christmas Day.