Seeing Politics 2015

On Monday, 11 May 2015 staff and students congregated in Squires to celebrate 50 years of Sociology at Northumbria and to select the winners of the new competition “Seeing Politics” and “Seeing Sociologically”.

In the competition we wanted to find out ‘what politics means’ to our students by asking them to submit their own perception of politics in the form of an image captured by photograph(s). The main aim was to encourage students to think about their discipline in a different way, to be creative and express their views through pictures rather than in the normal form of writing an essay.

All the student entries were displayed in poster format and entries were judged by a special guest, Helen Ford, the political correspondent for ITV Tyne Tees. Helen had the difficult task of choosing the winners and said she “found the students’ entries incredibly thought provoking. Politics is not just about politicians, but people in general, and this has very clearly been illustrated today”.

Third place was taken by second year student, Alexander Birch:

Joint runners-up, final year student, Anna McGuire and second year, Oliver Hallsworth-Baines:

The winner of the competition was second year student, Jake Bell with his poignant image:

Jake was delighted to win and explained how taking part in the competition had increased his understanding of Politics: “My photo entry was based on what I saw when walking around the city of Newcastle. I feel like I have a much better grasp of how Politics affects us every day, in particular, my own personal perception of the discipline.”

Staff and students attended the exhibition and were impressed by the results. Professor Mike Rowe, Head of the Department of Social Sciences and Languages at Northumbria said: “It was fantastic to see such imagination from our students here at Northumbria. The pieces of work at the exhibition really illustrate how students connect local and personal issues, to the broader social issues in society”.