Side Gallery
Introduction
Welcome to Side Gallery
Since opening in 1977, the gallery's been committed to documentary in the tradition of the concerned photographer - our own production/commissions in the North of England and the historical and contemporary work from around the world, which continues to inspire us. Talks are organised around most of the exhibitions. The gallery sells a range of photography books, posters, postcards and prints, along with Amber films on DVD.
OPEN: TUESDAY - SATURDAY, 11am - 5pm, Admission FREECurrent Exhibition
Saturday 16 January - Saturday 13 March 2010
WOMEN IN PRISON
Jane Evelyn Atwood
Visiting rights for couples who are incarcerated at the same time, male and female, in two sections of the same prison. Centre Pénitentiare de Femmes, Metz, France, 1990.
‘People often ask how I could pursue such a “sad” subject for so long. Curiosity was the initial spur. Surprise, shock and bewilderment gradually took over. Rage propelled me along to the end. In the early 1980s I first requested access to prisons in France, but was refused. It was not until 1989 that a chance assignment got me inside. That first, very real, very harsh experience of prison life opened my eyes. I identified with the inmates I met. On many levels they were just like me. But what had happened to them was dramatically different. Of the eighteen women in that first jail, all but one seemed to be incarcerated because of a man - for something he’d done, or something they’d never have done on their own.’ Jane Evelyn Atwood
Jane Evelyn Atwood spent over a decade documenting the lives of women in prison in the USA, across Europe and in India. Her monumental undertaking involved forty prisons in ten different countries, her journey took her to some of world’s worst penitentiaries and to death row. This classic exhibition remains the definitive photographic work on the subject. Her book, Too Much Time: Women in Prison, is published by Phaidon.
More Women In Prison images at Jane Evelyn Atwood's website
Jimmy Forsyth Dies
Jimmy Forsyth, who documented Scotswood Road in the 1950s and 1960s, died on Saturday 11th July 2009. His work stands as one of the great records of its kind - a portrait of a working class community from within. A couple of us from Amber went to his 95th birthday last November and communication was getting a bit difficult - but it wasn't long ago you'd still come across him in the streets with his camera (failing eyesight in his one good eye and wheelchair notwithstanding) and he was still a welcome surprise visitor at the gallery until a couple of years ago. Apparently his final illness only lasted a week and he died peacefully. We will all miss him at Amber. Anyone wanting to talk about him or his work can leave comments in the Amber Forum, where we've set up a dedicated discussion thread.