CONSISTENTLY CURIOUS (2022-2025)
Craig Easton
Craig Easton
Is Anybody Listening?
Photographer Craig Easton is known for producing work that challenges assumptions about working-class community life in the north of England. Two of his past projects resurfaced at a critical time for a Britain in the midst of the cost-of-living crisis.
Easton’s exhibition Is Anybody Listening? arrived in Blackpool in April 2023, and was hosted by Blackpool School of Arts, in partnership with LeftCoast. The project was part of a wider tour of the North West presented by The University of Salford Art Collection, with support from Liverpool’s Open Eye Gallery and The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
In 2021, Easton won ‘Photographer of the Year’ at the Sony World Photography Awards with Bank Top.
Photos from Bank Top made up part of Is Anybody Listening? next to Easton’s other series Thatcher’s Children, a commission supported by LeftCoast, which explores the economic hardship experienced by three generations of the same Blackpool family
CRAIG EASTON
Our Time, Our Place
During its stay in Blackpool, the college and LeftCoast helped facilitate an engagement programme called Our Time, Our Place, which was run alongside Easton’s exhibition.
This attracted over 700 participants, taking place over a series of free events, including a Supper Club, Private View, Artist Talk, and photography workshops.
Over 90 people attended the workshops, including students from Highfield Leadership Academy, South Shore Academy, Young Carers, creatives from Langdale Library and Laundry Room, and the college’s Adult Community Photography night classes.
Visitors called the exhibition “amazing” and “emotional” with one adding: “Is Anybody Listening? was very moving and I’m now more motivated than ever to help out those in need in my local area.”
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