Sunday 13 September 2015

For Ever Amber: Pictures at an Exhibition

Those who live their lives to the full have no need of immortality.
Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen

Yesterday I visited the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, and discovered For Ever Amber, an exhibition of documentary photography, mostly black and white and primarily of the North East in the 70s and 80s.

“Opening up an extraordinary documentary narrative, this exhibition is the first major account of the AmberSide Collection started by a group of like-minded students at Regent Street Polytechnic in London in 1968. With a resolve to collect documents of working class culture, Amber Collective moved to the North East of England the following year in 1969 and in 1977 opened Side Gallery where it remains today.”

The collection of photographs and videos affected me deeply. The following is excerpted from my chat conversation with Fran afterwards.

Marty:
Wonderful exhibition of photography. Local documentary photos. Gritty, real. Real life.. Real people.. Hopelessness.. Poverty.. Unemployment.. Dirt.. It’s depressing.. But also there is hope there.. That life goes on no matter what.. Not an easy exhibition for me. There is nowhere to hide. It is human. Humanity doing what it does.

Fran:
What do you feel? Mad glad sad afraid?

Marty:
Ignorant. Naive. Inadequate. Privileged. But also that I am these days a little less of those things. That it’s up to me if I want to change. It is in my power to do so.

Fran:
Your experience of this might make a good blog.

Transform yourself and you transform others.. ~fjh
Awareness is already a change.. ~fjh
When one awakens one can’t go back.. ~fjh
Transform yourself and others transform.. ~fjh
Perception is reality.. ~fjh

Marty:
Hey you’re pretty good at this! Yes, a blog could be a good idea. What I did get was a strong sense of how these many photographers were each telling their own small story. Together they were showing a much greater truth than any of them could have done alone. Echoes of what we are doing with Gum on My Shoe and the many many others telling their stories. Every one is a pebble tossed in the stream.

Fran:
Yep

Marty:
I was also thinking back to what we were talking about the other day. How some people build walls (physical and figurative) to keep them and their family safe, keep the big bad world at bay. I did it differently. I spent most of my life turning a blind eye to the big bad world. Both eyes. The challenge for me is to open my eyes, and not to build walls.

Fran:
With compassion for all..

Marty:
Yes. It’s natural to want to protect those closest to us. That’s not a bad impulse. But it can lead to “us/them” thinking. Demonisation. Fear. Walls. Asylums. Stigma. The photos mostly showed the working class, the dispossessed. Those who the establishment would demonise.

Fran:
People are afraid of losing stuff and family and health and life.. They sadly think they are in control.. However the universe is, not them. Love like that is not a free true love.. It’s grabby and possessive..

Marty:
They are not the enemy though. To imagine they are is just erecting more walls.

Fran:
Maybe not.. Maybe they are living the lives they were meant to.. Maybe they are put here to be teachers so we can grow..

Marty:
I’m ill at ease with the idea that things happen to us with a purpose, eg to teach us lessons. Seems to me “shit happens”, and we can choose to see and use it in different ways. We are free to see it as something to learn from. We are equally free to not learn.

Fran:
It is not our job to open other people’s eyes.. Only our own..

Marty:
Exactly..


For Ever Amber is on at the Laing Gallery until Saturday 19 September 2015.

 

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like an interesting exhibition. I do have a question, though. You both agreed that: 'It is not our job to open other people’s eyes.. Only our own..'..... may I ask what the aim is with the book/blog/interviews/etc... if not to try to help open other people's eyes?
    (Didn't mean to publish as 'anonymous' - and I'm NOT a 'robot', lol - but the 'comment as' options left me confused!)

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    1. Thanks for commenting! The book/blog etc -- all we are doing with Gum on My Shoe -- are about sharing a message, sharing a vision if you like. They are not about forcing anyone to change. They are not even about helping open other people's eyes -- more like helping them open their own eyes, if that makes sense? ~Marty

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  2. the exhibition sounds quite moving as is the conversation. I am learning that one's eyes open slowly .. it is a process of choices and not one singular choice or moment that changes ones outlook for every moment thereafter. thank you both for being part of the journey.

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    1. Thank you so much for your comment and support. "it is a process of choices" -- I love that (and might steal, ahem, borrow it to use elsewhere!) It really is a journey, good to have you along! ~Marty

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