Giroscope is launching The Alec Gill and Giroscope International Photography Competition, a new global photography award and exhibition programme created as part of Giroscope’s 40th anniversary celebrations.
The inaugural theme is ‘HOME’ – inviting photographers from Hull, the UK and across the world to submit work exploring belonging, memory, family, community, displacement, refuge, identity and the places people call home.
For four decades, Giroscope has worked in Hull to bring neglected buildings back into use. During this time, the organisation has created secure, affordable homes and supported research, enterprise and skills development to build long-term neighbourhood renewal. Established in 1986, its 40th anniversary provides a chance to reflect on this practical, community-led approach and develop new partnerships to encourage and inspire active participation in street-level regeneration.
The competition takes its name from Dr Alec Gill MBE, the Hull historian, author and photographer whose outstanding work documents the Hessle Road community through a transitional era of industrial decline and a redrawing of Hull’s social and housing landscape. Alec’s images pay attention to ordinary life without reducing it. They show humour, hardship, pride, uncertainty, tenderness and resilience, reminding us that places are not only made of buildings, but of people, relationships, work, memory and survival.
The theme ‘HOME’ reflects both Giroscope’s long-term commitment to Hull and Alec Gill’s close attention to people, place and everyday life. The Alec Gill and Giroscope International Photography Competition asks photographers to look closely and honestly at the world around them. People are invited to submit photographs that tell a story, noticing what is often overlooked, and to explore how home is both deeply personal and shaped by wider social forces. At its heart, the competition is about visibility: who gets seen, what gets remembered, and what can be learned by paying closer attention to everyday life.
Alec Gill, MBE said: “Home is where the heart is, and Giroscope have been providing homes and hope for people in Hull for forty years.
“This international competition will inspire photographers to capture the meaning of home in an ever-changing world. Good luck to everyone in taking pictures that will warm our hearts.”
Martin Newman, CEO, Giroscope said: “It is a great privilege for Giroscope to be working with such a strong and renowned team in this exciting competition. At the same time, it feels very natural to work with Alec Gill, who documented our neighbourhood, Hessle Road, in the decade prior to Giroscope starting its work 40 years ago.
It feels like a wonderful case of serendipity that we have come together to deliver this unique project. I look forward to being part of the team judging the entries on this fundamental theme of HOME.”
Partnership and knowledge exchange
The competition also builds on Giroscope’s growing work with partners across research, arts, culture and community engagement. In March this year, Giroscope worked with Colliderfest, Hull City Council and the University of Hull to bring hands-on science activity into St Matthew’s Community Enterprise Centre, widening access to learning and creating opportunities for academic ideas to connect directly with everyday life in HU3.
This photography competition continues that spirit of knowledge exchange. By bringing together Giroscope, the University of Hull, artists, photographers, designers, community voices and cultural partners, the project creates a space where lived experience, creative practice and academic thinking can meet. It reflects Giroscope’s wider role as a civic partner rooted in street-level experience, connected to broader conversations about how neighbourhoods thrive.
Dr Dawn M. Wilson, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Hull, said: “Leaving home or living at home, university life puts HOME in a new perspective. Our students, from around the city and across the world, can show us how to understand home in so many different ways. We can’t wait to see them all.”
About the judging panel
The judging panel brings together voices from photography, design, academia, community arts, housing, visual culture and community storytelling.
Iranzu Baker is a UK-based creative working across publishing, archives and visual culture. She created The Alec Gill Hessle Road Photo Archive, a photobook developed from Alec Gill’s archive of photographs documenting Hull’s Hessle Road community.
Anna Coromina is a versatile social artist who uses diverse media, including photography, event creation, tile-making, social media and floral arts in the service of flourishing neighbourhoods. Founder and manager of 3 Stages of Succession, she has been coordinating community engagement and social media at Giroscope for the past four years.
Ruth Drake is an experienced arts development officer at Hull City Council. She has worked in local authority arts for many years, including as a youth arts co-ordinator, supporting the development of artists and arts organisations while championing Hull’s Culture and Heritage Strategy 2025–2030.
Dr Alec Gill MBE is a Hull historian, author and photographer known for his long-term documentary work on Hessle Road’s fishing community. His archive records Hull’s fishing culture, social history and changing neighbourhoods across decades.
Dr Barnaby Haran is Senior Lecturer in American Cultural History at the University of Hull. He has written widely on American photography, focusing on radical, documentary and gallery practices in the interwar years, and currently researches photographic representations of racial injustice in historical media.
Mark Harvey is a Sheffield-based photographer working as iD8 Photography. His commissions include work for photo agencies, businesses, charities and public-sector clients, producing images for social media, press, publicity, marketing and corporate projects.
Fran Méndez is a designer, lecturer and co-founder of HONDO™. He has more than 15 years’ experience in branding, editorial and art direction, and HONDO™ was listed by Creative Boom among its 2025 “Top 25 Most Inspiring Studios”.
Martin Newman is the CEO and a co-founder of Giroscope, the Hull-based organisation that buys and renovates empty properties to provide secure, affordable accommodation. Giroscope also supports neighbourhood regeneration, training and community-led change.
George Norris is a Hull-based photographer whose work includes Untethered, a photographic exhibition documenting a journey to Appleby Horse Fair. Coming from a long line of Hull-based horse traders and scrap collectors, George continues to develop new innovative work in Hull, exploring a range of subject matter with people at the heart.
Glynis Neslen is a Hull-based artist and photographer whose work includes photographic portraiture. She has spoken publicly about her practice through Hull arts programming and is included in projects documenting Black British women’s histories, activism and identity.
Claire Taylor is the Communications Manager at Giroscope and an arts practitioner with a background in creative project management, storytelling and media production. She has worked across the arts and culture, research, community and education sectors, developing collaborative projects that connect artists, researchers and communities.
Dr Dawn M. Wilson is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Hull and Vice-President of the British Society of Aesthetics. Her internationally recognised work in the philosophy of photography includes a multi-stage account of photography described as a new direction in the field.
About the competition
- Photographers may respond to the theme through documentary, portrait, street, landscape or conceptual approaches. What matters is that it connects meaningfully with the theme and treats people, places and subjects with care.
- Entries will be judged on authenticity, storytelling, creativity and technical quality. Photographs must be original works, taken in 2026, with only basic editing permitted. Generative AI imagery will not be accepted. Entrants retain copyright while granting Giroscope permission to use selected images in exhibition and promotional material with full credit.
- Open to amateur and professional photographers, the competition has two categories: Adult, for entrants aged 18 and over, and Young People, for entrants aged 17 and under. Adult entry costs £5 for up to two submissions, with a £500 prize for the winning adult entry. Young people’s entry costs £2 for up to two submissions, with a £300 photography equipment award for the winning young person.
- Submissions are now open and close on 30th October 2026 at midnight GMT. Shortlisted and winning photographs will be shown in a public exhibition at St Matthew’s Community Enterprise Centre, Hull, in 2027, as part of Giroscope’s 40th anniversary programme.