FOR three weeks starting on Sunday Oxford will be a beacon for world-class photography as the city will host the first new international festival of its type in the UK for many years.

Oxford Brookes is extremely excited and proud to be participating in the festival, an event that’s bound to stimulate debate and discussion about photography at the beginning of the 21st century.

In my role as gallery manager and exhibitions curator, I look after the university’s new Glass Tank exhibition space on our Headington campus.

Our exhibition programme is varied and inspiring and it is enjoyed by our students and staff, but we also regularly welcome visitors from the local community.

At Oxford Brookes we are proud of our close links with our neighbours and residents of Oxford, and our involvement and support of the upcoming festival is a true reflection of that.

We can’t wait to welcome the community on to our campus to marvel at the photography on display, as well as to look around the award-winning John Henry Brookes and Abercrombie buildings.

Photography Oxford 2014 will be launched by Minister for Culture Ed Vaizey, and throughout the three weeks it will feature free exhibitions of world-class photography alongside a programme of exciting talks, debates, workshops, films and competitions.

The exhibitions that we are hosting at Oxford Brookes will include images from the prestigious World Press Photo 2014, On Solid Ground from Panos Pictures and a community photography project entitled Home led by local artist Gerard Hanson, in collaboration with our students and the Oxford Mail.

World Press Photo is the world’s leading contest for professional press photographers. Hosting it at Oxford Brookes is a real coup for the festival and the University as it is an internationally renowned exhibition.

It showcases the creativity in the profession of photojournalism and it has a broad appeal, forming an eyewitness record of world events from the previous year.

On Solid Ground from Panos Pictures will tell the stories of those starting afresh in unfamiliar cities, rebuilding homes they were forced to abandon decades before, or embracing new means of survival in the face of crisis. This exhibition is the result of a partnership between the International Rescue Committee and the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department.

We are also delighted to be exhibiting a collaborative community project in Home, which poses the question of how people interpret the idea of ‘Home’ and how it can be represented photographically.

Gerard and our students have organised a series of workshops, online projects and work with the Oxford Mail to encourage the multi-cultural communities of Oxfordshire to engage with the often sensitive and complex emotions underlying the idea of home.

The exhibitions will formally open as part of Photography Oxford which runs from Sunday, September 14 to Sunday October, 5.

On the weekend of the launch we are also opening the new John Henry Brookes Building to the local community as part of the Oxford Preservation Trust’s Open Doors scheme this weekend. As well as providing a sneak-peak of the three photography exhibitions, Open Doors will provide a wide range of activities, including a fantastic open lecture from Bryan Brown who will give a taste of his upcoming biography of John Henry Brookes, the spiritual founder of the University.

The exciting weekend is just the start; with our 150th anniversary next year we are planning many interesting and awe-inspiring activities and events which we hope the local community will come to and enjoy.

Further information on Photography Oxford is available on the Photography Oxford Festival ’14 website at photographyoxford.co.uk

You can find out more about Oxford Preservation Trust’s Open Doors weekend as well as the activities available at oxfordopendoors.org.uk

For information on what Oxford Brookes is doing for both of these events, go to brookes.ac.uk

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