Side Gallery
Forthcoming Exhibitions
HORSE NATION
Dean Chapman
Saturday 21 June to Saturday 23 August
Dean was initially drawn into documenting this territory, back in 2000, photographing teenagers exercising their horses on a housing estate near Bishop Auckland as part of his Coalfield Stories project Shifting Ground. His introduction to the horsey world of harness racing came through Amber’s Murray Martin, who was an active member of the trotting community. In 2003 and 2004 Dean documented the race meetings of the United Kingdom Standard-bred Racing Association, which Murray helped to set up and run. The races were held across County Durham, but Dean followed the story to stables in Wallsend, small horse fairs such as Fencehouses, drives, road races and, of course, to Appleby.
Horse Nation constitutes one of the central photographic essays in a long-term project upon which Dean has embarked, working across the North East, recording the relationship between man and beast – the working, racing and hunting animals around which so many communities and individuals shape their identity.
Event: Dean Chapman discusses Horse Nation, Saturday 21 June, 2pm, FREE
The Star Café, West Auckland by Dean Chapman
APPLEBY HORSE FAIR
Dave Thomas
Saturday 21 June to Saturday 19 July
One of the most popular of our online exhibitions, this work, acquired in 2000 has not previously been seen as a full exhibition at Side Gallery. Dave Thomas photographed the fair in 1969 and 1970: the meeting ground it seems to present, as the largest and most important of travellers’ gatherings in England, between the cultures of a settled majority and a doggedly persistent nomadic way of life. The work captures a moment in a history that goes back to 1685 and looks forward to the world captured in Dean Chapman’s Horse Nation and Amber’s new film The Pursuit of Happiness.
Appleby Fair by Dave Thomas