A couple of weeks ago a small gang of us students dropped in to see the Why documentary? exhibition at the Side Gallery. Sirkka Liisa Kottinen stopped as she saw us in the gallery and talked with us for a while about the magnificent photographs, and the beginnings of Amber. It’s the 30th birthday of the collective, and it’s really amazing seeing what they’ve achieved.
Sirkka, always generous with her time and encouragement, talked about how important and difficult it can be to take those first steps as a public documentary photographer, to plan and engage people, to gain their trust. To photograph one’s neighbours and exhibit, publish so that the subjects can see themselves in one’s work, is at once exhilirating and quite terrifying for the new photographer, well, for me. I’m not really quite sure why.
These are two of Sirkka’s photographs from her Byker series and book. She is back again, making another series in the new Byker, working in the local community centre, getting to know the new people of Byker all over again. It’s a long job, to do it properly.
There’s an astonishing range of work in the exhibition: a Simon Norfolk in the foyer, an exquisite wee Doisneau, a Weegee from the 30s, a couple of Sanders, and of course much of the remarkable work the Side is renowned for showing. Pithead, fishing fleet, dockyard, our tough teenage girls and our fragile heavy industry. Sirkka told us that nobody wanted to show documentary photography when they started Amber. Why documentary? You must be crazy! Thirty years later it is abundantly clear why.
“More than just a celebration, it is an argument for sustained documentary – portraiture, narrative and social narrative – in the tradition of the concerned photographer; for its continuing relevance and evolving possibilities.”
Go and see it! I’m going again tomorrow. It’s on until 10th November.
That same day, we also wandered across the river to see the now infamous Goldins and a secret Gursky which has somehow sneaked below the radar in the Zabludowicz collection. Magnificent work, but it is the black and whites up those rickety stairs that have stayed with me. Will attempt some more coherent thoughts after I’ve been again.
Photos ©Sirkka Liisa Kottinen
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3 Comments
I didn’t realise when I went to the opening of this show that Murray Martin had died (in August). I think it is fair to say that without Murray there would have been no Side, but also no Quayside and possibly therefore no Baltic. I’m halfway through a post about my own contact with him and Side back in the late 1980s.
You went to the opening? You were in town? Damn. Not only did I miss the opening, I missed you! Let me know next time, hmm?
I never met Murray Martin, but it’s significant how many people say the same kinds of things as you. There’s a roll of tribute comments on the Amber website.
I was up for a school reunion. There were people there I hadn’t seen since 1965! I tried to set up a meet via AotN on Flickr, bit without success. I did make it to see the Flickr show in the cafe, although not on the sunday with everyone else. I also managed to get to the Quayside market but it isn’t the same without the old barkers.