The RED Exhibition // L - A City Through Its People

Back in March 2020 we’d just announced our Crowdfunder and we were busy talking about it on radio stations and podcasts, shouting about it on social media and it was so exciting as the momentum was really building. At the same time the news reported that there had been around three Covid cases confirmed in Merseyside. Over the following two weeks, as our donations grew, so did the covid cases and we began to feel more and more uncomfortable about pushing the Crowdfunder and by the end of March the landscape looked nothing like we ever could have imagined as we entered our first lockdown and the world literally stopped. All our plans for RED and the Caravan suddenly came to a standstill and we slowly began to accept that 2020 was going to look a lot different for all of us.

Then in September 2020 as we began to slowly emerge we recieved an email from Mariama Attah, Open Eye Gallery’s Curator asking whether we would be interested in sharing RED as part of a gallery exhibition celebrating the City of Liverpool through its people. The only thing was that they would need everything, ready to hang in four weeks! It was going to be quite a challenge but it was a wonderful opportunity to share the archive, physically with the whole city, at a time when we were having to be socially distant and connection and joy were needed more than ever.

RED would be part of the exhibition ‘L - A City Through It’s people’. Covering a time period of Liverpool from the 1950s to the present day the exhibition brought together three distinct exhibitions, the combined archives of The RED Archive, Scottie Press (the Uk’s oldest running community newspaper) and Tell It Like It Is (a photography and writing partnership between Ian Clegg and Laura Robertson).
Spanning evolutions in industry, society, and leisure at a time of rapid change and challenge, all three archives share unique approaches and perspectives in telling a story about Liverpool, its people, and the ideals that lend the city charm and a distinct personality.

So I began collecting together RED’s archive images from fans and their audio interviews and very quickly realised that many of the archive images weren’t high enough resolution to print the sizes we wanted. You see, many images from the archive had been uploaded to our website from the fans themselves and now that we were looking at sharing them in large printed form, we needed to have a better file to work with, which meant scanning the originals. So for the next fortnight it was a frenzy of calls and emails to ask if fans could post me their images so that I could scan them and then send them back. It was a mammoth task (but something that I’m so glad is now done!). At the same time I knew I wanted to share audio interviews and portraits and at this point I had two interviews ready and edited. Both were male fans and I felt it was important to add a female voice and so I reached out to the most wonderful, lifelong Red, Peggy and was able to record an interview and take her portrait to add to the exhibition.

Alongside the photos and interviews I knew of a handful of fans that had the most wonderful memorabelia, many items homemade and I was keen to share them in some way too. By this point you were allowed to travel so there were trips across the water and down the motorway to be passed Tesco carrier bags filled with their most precious possessions - homemade scarves, rattles, rosettes and signed books. Another advantage of collecting the pieces of memorabilia is that I also had a chance to photograph everything to add to the archive too…

Planning out the layout of fan memorabelia for the display cases

By the end of the four weeks we had all of our content and we could start the exciting part of installing it in the gallery!

“RED by Emma Case introduces us to the pride and glory of being part of the Liverpool football family, featuring portraits, images, interviews and original memorabilia donated by the football fans, expressing their generosity and spirit.”

As we got closer to the opening of the show, Covid cases started to increase again and as we edged nearer it was announced that the UK would again be going into lockdown. We were gutted. The day we were due to open, lockdown began again. The doors couldn’t open. Again all that hard work and nobody could see it. The gallery were wonderful and immediately set about recording a virtual reality version of the tour which they then put on their website. It meant that local fans and fans further afield could both enjoy the show from the comfort of their own home. And in a way, it means the exhibition gets to live on for longer…

You can take the virtual tour yourself here - https://openeye.org.uk/whatson/vr-l-a-city-through-its-people/…

Anfield / Homebaked

When Mariama first got in touch and we started to discuss ideas and set about planning the gallery space, there were two things I felt were really important that I wanted included. The first was that I wanted the exhibition to be a total of 96 photographs, to honour the 96 who tragically lost their lives at Hillsborough. I wanted to make sure that they were included, that whatever we do, and continue to do with RED, that they will be with us.

I also wanted part of the exhibition to be extended out into Anfield. I wanted to create a link between the gallery in the city centre and the community of Anfield. Throughout the pandemic, without the football and the footfall that comes with it, many local businesses had suffered tremendously. I wanted to show that we support them and that we’re all connected. And so three portraits were displayed on the metal fronts of Homebaked CLT, the terraced houses connected to the Bakery. And there’s really nothing better when the fans spot themselves in part of the exhibition and post a photo or two… :)

You can also find out a bit more about the exhibition with this behind the scenes interview..

We did eventually get to open the doors for a few weeks and although it was a shame that fans didn’t get to see it in person as much as we’d hoped, the experience of putting it together was such a huge learning curve for me. It has made me even more passionate about continuing to creatively exhibit the archive (in lots of different ways and in different locations) and it reinforced just how important it is to keep preserving and sharing these stories.

When Open Eye first approached me with the idea of the exhibition, my initial thought was that RED wasn’t ready. A gallery exhibition like this one was what I envisaged seeing for the project in a few years time. To me it felt like I’d only just started and what I’d collected (the archive of photos and a couple of interviews) felt like just the beginning, a taster if you like. The majority of the archive had been built on an open call - asking fans on social media to send me their photos and I was looking forward to building on this and reaching out to members of the fan community that I felt weren’t yet represented. I felt very strongly that the archive wasn’t yet representing the stories, experiences and voices of our wonderfully diverse and passionate fan community.

For RED in 2022 I’m excited to be (finally) getting the opportunity to reach out to more fans and my focus is very much about ensuring that stories from all of our fan community are added to the archive.

And of course, last but not least I want to say a huge thank you to all the fans who so generously contributed to this exhibition. From sending their precious memories in the post to donating the ‘Shankly Red’ paint for the gallery walls - it was a complete team effort and it was an absolute joy to create this exhibition with you.

Emma x

YNWA