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Saturdays: 10.00am to 4.00pm
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DMG,
Blanche Pease Annexe,
The Arts Centre,
Vane Terrace,
Darlington,
DL3 7AX
The Factory Floor in the German Democratic Republic
Opening Decisive Moment Gallery. June 20th at 2pm
Decisive Moment Gallery. June 20th to September 19th 2009
'Lost World' by Georg Krause
The first UK showing of the work of Berlin photographer Georg Krause opens at Darlington Media Group’s Decisive Moment Gallery on Saturday 20th June. Lost World was produced during the final years of the communist German Democratic Republic.
Since the eighties, when he was still a student of photography, Georg Krause has made work the theme of his photography. He grew up in the German Democratic Republic fatherless, and started his own working life in the opencast mines of Hagenwerda near Görlitz.
What impressed him then were the men with huge machines who performed this heavy work on a daily basis. They called each other “mates” and wished each other luck at the beginning and end of the day with the miners’ traditional greeting: “Glück auf!”
Around 1985 he produced “The Working World of the Smelters” and “The Copper Foundry“, followed in 1987 by ‘The Working World of the Department Store“, and in 1988/89 “The Women Who Feed Building Workers“.
Initially he used the working environment as a source for images of people. Over time the world of work became his theme, and people provided the material, becoming a factor in his broader exploration of “People – Work – Life“. The eternal philosophy of living to work and working to live, and the conditions in which life actually unfolds here and today, are his principal themes – not the world of the rich and the beautiful. His “Working Worlds” are serial formats devoted to specific subsets of the working environment, although each work in the series must also speak for itself.
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union-led experiment in a totalitarian form of state control, East Germans look back on this Lost World with a mixture of relief and regret. Relief that the days of shortages and grey uniformity are past. But regret for the way in which the west ruthlessly demolished many important social pillars of life. Work, guaranteed under the GDR regime, is one such pillar that is gone. Unemployment in Germany’s eastern states stood at 13% in 2008, compared with 6.4% in the west. Georg Krause’s Working Worlds are truly lost.
Description: Darlington Media Group will be holding an international event in the Media Workshop on Saturday 20th June from 2-5pm. Top of the bill is a look at the effects of the fall of the Berlin Wall – this year is the 20th anniversary.
DMG is hosting an exhibition by East Berlin photographer Georg Krause, who will be attending the event, whilst the event ends with the screening of a unique film made in 1987 in the GDR by Newcastle’s Amber Films.
Richard Grassick who was there when it was made, will be at the event to present the film.
In between, we are screening the DVD of the 2008 Darlington International Day event, and in anticipation of the following week, a short DVD about our Community Carnival.
Commencing Tuesday 9th June 2009, 7.00 – 9.00 pm in the DMG workshops.
Cost (full 6 weeks) £75.00, or 3 week part course (Printing only) £40.00
Tutor Dr Jim Lycett
A six week course specifically designed for photographers wishing to use the state of art large format printing and high-end scanning facilities within the media workshops. Participants not able to attend the complete course may opt for Fine Art printing only or high-end scanning. Correct preparation of an image is fundamental to high quality printing using large format printers; to ensure this, ‘non-destructive editing’ using PHOTOSHOP will form an essential part of the course, allowing images to be prepared for printing. In addition, calibration techniques and the implementation of both monitor and printer profiles will be examined. Emphasis, within the course, will be placed on creating a strong practical work flow, together with image manipulation, layer and mask editing, colour correction, monochrome conversion, soft focus and effective sharpening. Also included in the course will be an introduction to high-end transparency and negative scanning using the ‘Imacon Flextight Scanner’. Generally each session will contain an introductory explanation and demonstration of principles, followed by a supervised hands-on session where all participants will be given the opportunity of discussing and consolidating the work. Participants are encouraged to bring along their own work after week 2.
The DMG workshop is well equipped with a suite of Apple Macintosh computers, an EPSON 7800 large format printer and an IMACON Flextight Scanner.
Please note :- a maximum of six persons per course. This is a rolling programme and candidates may join at any time.
DMG’s collaboration with the Open Arts Studio next door is resulting in a number of small scale works in a wide range of media. This one minute film was produced in three hours by users of the Open Arts Studio and DMG film-makers. More will follow.
Description: Georg Krause’s exhibition ‘Lost World: The Factory Floor of the German Democratic Republic’ opens at 2pm – also two DMG video productions will get their premier today; International Day 2008, and Community Carnival 2008
Exhibition Opening 18th of April at 2pm and runs until the 27th of May
Ramshackles by David Thomas
Ramshackles is a generic title I have adopted to describe any kind of functional structure, innocent of the ‘professional’ eye or hand, but built by laymen for their own pursuits, and covering a wide range of activities, from recreational pastimes to work.
The first major exhibition was at Impressions Gallery in York, which had pioneered the concept of photo galleries, and was called ‘The Work of The Weavers’, an exploration of the West Yorkshire woollen industry. Several other long-term projects were also started during this time including ‘Ramshackles’ (a celebration of alternative architecture) in 1975, Appleby Horse Fair. In 1973 he quit teaching and returned to freelance photography based in Leeds. Clients included the Halifax, BBC Television, and many regional and national advertising agencies. He also continued to produce personal work, being a founder member of ‘Northlight’, a co-operative based in Leeds, and in particular the long-term project of ‘Ramshackles’, before returning to teaching in 1984, moving to the north east and teaching at Cleveland College of Art & Design.
His first major regional exhibition was at Darlington Arts Centre, ‘Ramshackles’, 1986/87, which has since toured many venues in the UK, including Side Gallery. He has continued to work around the themes of people and landscape, some in liaison with Amber Side, including a 1992 project on the Blue Circle cement works.
As you may have seen in the Northern Echo at the end of last month, this year’s main prize-winners of the Big Snap competition were:
1st Prize Pete Roberts
2nd Prize Shane Dew
3rd Prize Diana Breeze
The prizes were presented at the ‘Best of Darlington’ Awards held at Darlington College in February and since then, the exhibition of Big Snap photographs have been on display in Darlington Media Workshop, Arts Centre,Vane Terrace, Darlington.
Following this event, another important part of the competition for DMG is the awarding of two other prizes of £50 for the photograph entries:
· ‘The People’s Choice’ prize which we ask visitors to the exhibition to vote for
· The DMG prize which is awarded by the Media Group photographers
This year we are awarding both of these prizes at a Saturday morning event on March 21st at 11am and would like to invite you to come along and find out who won before we take down the exhibition, in time to open with our new photographic exhibition the following week.
Come along to our Big Snap celebration event for local photography, where you can see the prize winning photographs, meet other photographers and find out about some of the other ongoing Media Group projects. As April is also the start of our new membership year, why not come and see what our members get for their £10 annual membership?
Everyone welcome and coffee and cake will be served.
Our criminal justice system spends millions on institutions designed to both protect the public from juvenile crime. They claim to either reform or prepare these young people for the outside world one way or another.
Phil Dixon has spent many years working in a Young Person’s Secure Facility. This exhibition is his visual statement about the residents’ experience there. His work explores the impact of institutionalisation and the effects upon young people’s lives. It addresses how both the vulnerable and perpetrators of anti-social and criminally orientated lifestyles co-exist.
It raise the debate ‘could the money be better invested in the communities that spawn these problems?
'Iran: Sisters in Chanel and Chador' by Newsha Tavakolian
Newsha Tavakolian’s vibrant images document the changing role of women in Iran. On display for the first time in the UK as part of the Tees Valley Museums’ Photography Festival, this Wideyed touring exhibition shows facets of Iranian life that rarely appear in our media.
Newsha Tavakolian, 27, has been a working photographer since the age of 16. Her work has been widely published internationally and in 2007 she was a finalist for the Inge Morath Award.
For further information about hosting this touring exhibition, please download the exhibition information .pdf
Hello to all 2009 Big Snap entrants,
