Side Gallery

On 9th April 2023, Side Gallery closed to the public due to critical funding cuts and the ‘cost of living crisis’.

Our amazing donors raised over £60,000 to #SaveSide, and thanks to their support, we were able to retain a small part-time team to look after our archive, continue our education programme in local schools, and apply for critical funding. Currently, we’re awaiting the outcome of an application to the National Heritage Lottery Fund. If we’re successful, it will put us on the path to reopening Side Gallery, but we have a long road ahead of us.

Thanks to your support, we’ve still achieved incredible feats over the last few months. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

  • Through the National Archive’s Archived Revealed Grant funding, we will create a fully accessible public catalogue, ensuring the stories we’re caretakers of are experienced by many more. 
  • Funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, we launched our education programme in North Tyneside. The programme will run for 3 years and aims to train primary school children in two schools in documentary filmmaking and photography.
  • Secured £50,000 from Arts Council England’s Unlocking Collections to develop touring exhibitions and research the collection.
  • We’ve taken part in exhibitions across the UK, including Marc Wilson’s The Wounded Landscape Tour at The Impressions Gallery, Bradford
  • The collection is also playing a prominent role in the Hayward Gallery Touring’s After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024, which opens at the Herbert Gallery in Coventry on the 29th of March. 
    We are also looking to the future. Several exhibitions will kick off in London, the first at Tate Britain in November, called Photographing 80s Britain: A Critical Decade, followed by an exhibition at Two Temple Place, details to follow! 

Watch this space… as soon as we have an update on our funding application, we’ll let you know. 

In the meantime, could you take 2 minutes to tell us what you see when you Reimagine Side?  

We know that if we receive the grant funding that will help us re-open our physical gallery space, it needs to evolve into something different to ensure that we’re fit for the future and as accessible as possible. To thrive, we need to Reimagine Side, and so we want to hear from you.

Watch the campaign film

Side Gallery is dedicated to showing the best in documentary photography: rich, powerful and challenging work engaged with people’s lives and landscapes, telling stories that often get marginalised, whether they are from the North East of England or anywhere else in the world.

The gallery is close to the Tyne Bridge on Newcastle’s Quayside, see location & access details.

For news on upcoming exhibitions and events please join our mailing list.

Entry to the gallery is free.

Current / Upcoming Exhibitions

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Latest Past Events

A Wounded Landscape by Marc Wilson

130 LOCATIONS, 20 COUNTRIES, 22 SURVIVOR STORIES, 6 YEARS Side Gallery is honoured to showcase the first major UK exhibition of photographer Marc Wilson’s personal journey, bearing witness to the […]

Side Gallery

5-9 Side
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 3JE

Opening Hours

  • The gallery is closed until further notice.

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