Photo: Sirkka Liisa Konttinen, Byker Girl on Spacehopper, 1971. Image courtesy of the artist
In 1978 Henri Cartier-Bresson celebrated his 70th birthday with Amber Film & Photography Collective and a retrospective at Side Gallery, the group’s then new documentary photography venue in Newcastle upon Tyne. As a thank you, he sent a photograph inscribed “for ever Amber”. 37 years later his words come to life in the first major retrospective for Amber’s remarkable collection.
Opening at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle, from 27 June – 19 September 2015, the exhibition includes some of the most profoundly affecting photography of the 20th Century.
The Amber collective came together in 1968 ‘to collect documents of working class culture.’ Basing itself in North East England, it has explored the lives and landscapes of marginalised communities ever since. The opening of Side Gallery in 1977 allowed it to do this in the inspirational context of the best of contemporary and historical humanist documentary. The on-going AmberSide Collection now holds over 20,000 photographs, 12,000 transparencies and 100 films.
The roll call of photographers involved is impressive by anyone’s standards: Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Graham Smith, Chris Killip, Marketa Luskacova, Martine Franck, John Davies, Nick Hedges, Chris Steele-Perkins, Tish Murtha, Simon Norfolk. The collection’s international exhibitions include Weegee, August Sander, Russell Lee and Robert Doisneau, Susan Meiselas, Eugene Richards, Graciela Iturbide and Jindrich Streit. Using film, photography and a single working narrative, no other documentary project of this order has been sustained for so long. The collection is uniquely important.
The main For Ever Amber exhibition will feature over 150 original photographs and film clips, that capture over 40 years of cultural, political and economic shifts in North East England.
Events
There's a significant programme of events connected to this exhibition; of particular note is the Future Presence conference at Newcastle University (Fri 10 - Sat 11 July 2015): John Akomfrah & Lina Gopaul from what was Black Audio Collective (showing the film Handsworth Songs, which grew out of sound system tape slide work), photographers Ian Macdonald, Keith Pattison and the four members of Verso Images collective from Russia (Grozny: Nine Cities), a Panel of the Documented (NB actually 45 mins, not the advertised 15) and folks from Amber. Lots of looking at work and talking about it. There's also a programme of some of Amber's great films running from July to September.