Welcome to the April issue of Amber's e-newsletter.

In this Issue

	FIRSTLY...
	NO ROOM FOR DOCUMENTARY IN THE ACE NATIONAL PORTFOLIO
	WHAT YOU CAN DO!

In Other News

GALLERY OPENING HOURS:

Tue – Sat, 11am – 5pm, FREE 

FIRSTLY...

Many many thanks to all of you who have responded to the news of our funding cut with words of support. We cannot begin to describe how much this means to all of us at Amber/Side.

Please continue to do so and spread the word!

NO ROOM FOR DOCUMENTARY IN THE ACE NATIONAL PORTFOLIO

A LUTA CONTINUA!
The Struggle Continues!

Side Gallery,

Saturday 2 April to Saturday 28 May
 

In excluding Newcastle’s Side Gallery from its National Portfolio, the Arts Council pretends to itself that documentary photography is covered by the other visual arts clients it funds. As an ever-increasing stack of emails, the twittersphere and the I LOVE SIDE GALLERYonline petition reveal , the huge number of people who care about this crucial work have absolutely no confidence in this misplaced belief. Side is the only gallery in the country dedicated to humanist documentary photography and it turns out to have programmed A LUTA CONTINUA! with a great sense of timing.

It is an exhibition that, maybe, only Side Gallery could produce. Opening up on the relationship between the current transformative wave of protest photography and the visual language developed in the documentary tradition, it brings together international, national and regional work from open submission with photographs from Side’s unique and internationally significant archive. The show has been curated by the award-winning photographer and Side Gallery worker Dean Chapman, some of whose own long-term work on Burma is included.

Open submission: Work continues to come in; imagery so far includes Egypt (Yehia Alaily & Laura El-Tanawy), Yemen (Giulio Petrucco), Burma (Martin LeSanto-Smith), tuition fees (Max Colson, Steven Lee & Rebecca Sym), libraries (Grace Wong), tax-avoiding companies (David Ellis); UAF/EDL (Reuben Tabner, Ed Thomson & Charles Bell); anti-war (Dawn Lehrer); G8 (Paul Knox)... And Guardian photographer Gary Calton has sent a beautiful body of protest work, Citizens of Our Time.

Image shown: New Mexico Protest by Dawn Lehrer

From the archive: Manuel Bravo, Casasola, Dean Chapman, Steve Conlan, Raymond Depardon, Bob Gannon, Paul Lowe, Susan Meiselas, Tish Murtha, Keith Pattison, Mark Power, Humphrey Spender, Chris Steele-Perkins, Paul Trevor – from the Jarrow March to the Miners’ Strike, from Mexico to Chile, from Northern Ireland to Brixton and Notting Hill, from Burma to Tiananmen Square... the Poll Tax, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Romanian Revolution, the Berlin Wall...

And, as well as exploring some remarkable contemporary and historically significant protest photography, visitors to the gallery will have the opportunity to register their own protest at the Arts Council’s inadequate response to documentary photography in its National Portfolio.

Image shown: Easington Miners' Strike by Keith Pattison

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

PETITION:
CLICK HERE

WRITE:
If you believe the funding cut to be a bad decision, make a comment or describe what Side means to you personally.

Please email us here: CLICK TO EMAIL

We will pass on all comments to the Arts Council and any letters of support may prove to be invaluable in securing other funding.

SPEAK:
Come to the opening event of our aptly named ‘A Luta Continua!/The Struggle Continues!' exhibition this Saturday (2nd April) at 2pm. Have drinks, see the exhibition, listen to photographer Dean Chapman discuss the work.

There will be an opportunity to capture your thoughts on the funding cut on video at this event?

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