Darlington Media Group » Exhibitions

New Exhibition: Photogenus II, exploration of the pinhole

Sapphire Grey — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:31:14 +0000

Photogenus II is the second exhibition by members and guests of the Darlington Photo-secessionists.

Contributors to the exhibition, with their individual styles, have explored many aspects of pinhole photography and have produced iconic images mainly from around the Darlington area.

The exhibition runs from September 26th-November 28th 2009, and is open from 12-7pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and 10am-4pm on Saturdays.

International Event

Steve — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:57:15 +0000

Title: International Event.
Location: Darlington Media Workshop
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.
Start Time: 14:00
Date: 2009-06-20
End Time: 17:00

‘Lost World’ by Georg Krause

atomheartfather — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:07:54 +0000

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.

Exhibition Opening – 20th June 2009 – Georg Krause

Steve — Mon, 04 May 2009 12:34:34 +0000

Title: Exhibition Opening

Location: Decisive Moment Gallery

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

Start Time: 14:00

Date: 2009-06-20

‘Ramshackles – A Celebration of Alternative Architecture’ by David Thomas

Steve — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 11:00:51 +0000

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.

Big Snap – 2009 – ‘Faces and Places’

Steve — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:13:25 +0000

21st January 2009 to 25th March 2009

Big Snap 2008 Winner - Alison Gall

Hello to all 2009 Big Snap entrants,

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.

‘Money Well Spent’ by Phil Dixon

Steve — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 20:11:37 +0000

29th November 2008 to 24th January 2009

'Money Well Spent' by Phil Dixon

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

Steve — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:09:17 +0000

7th September 2008 – 22nd November 2008

'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

www.newshatavakolian.com

‘Corrina and Anna’ by Sabine Bungert

Steve — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 20:05:18 +0000

26th July 2008 – 24th September 2008

'Corrina and Anna' by Sabine Bungert

Since 1994 Sabine Bungert has been running a long-term photo project. She takes portraits ofCorinna (34) and her daughter Anna (13) in a strictly documentary style in front of a plain white background. This is to detach them from their social surroundings and focus entirely on mother and daughter, providing an undisturbed and straight view for the beholder.

The first photo, taken in 1994, shows Corinna right after she received her „Abitur“ certificate for sucessfully finishing secondary school. Approximately one year later Anna was born; another year after that Corinna married her long-term friend who is the father of daughter Anna. By now Corinna sucessfully finished her studies, an internship at school and is now teaching English and history at a school in Duesseldorf, Germany. Anna attends 7th grade, loves to go shopping with her friends and enjoys music and sports (especially football).

www.sabinebungert.de

‘Lost Industrial Teesside Communities’ by Derek Smith

Steve — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:09:53 +0000

31st May 2008 – 19th July 2008

'Lost Industrial Teesside Communities'

The project began in 1971, when Smith was sixteen years old and continued into the mid 1970s, developing into an extensive body of work documenting the communities that had grown up around the huge iron and steel works of the region. Among the pubs, clubs and streets Smith found often difficult working lives and hardship, but also rich expressions of solidarity, compassion and a stoical sense of humour. As an insider to these communities, whose family had worked and lived in Thornaby since the early 1900s, Smith was well placed to portray them without sentimentality or judgment but with dignity, curiosity and respect.

Today, following de-industrialisation of the region, many of these once thriving working class communities have been lost from the national map and have been forgotten.

In this light, Smith’s recently rediscovered negatives provide a fascinating and thought-provoking insight into the culture and living conditions of a section of the North East in the 1970s. Many of the images are being shown for the first time in this exhibition.

Derek Smith talks