GALLERY

Side Gallery | 9 Side | Newcastle upon Tyne | NE1 3JE | 0191 232 2208 | www.amber-online.com

Tuesday to Saturday | 11am - 5pm | (Thursdays 11am 7pm) | FREE | Find us on Facebook & Twitter

02.08.14-12.10.14

August 2014 sees the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.

August 2015 will see the 70th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Side Gallery presents two exhibitions from the AmberSide Collection. One explores Tyneside production of the military technology that defined the war to end all wars, the other explores the personal impacts of the bomb that has defined the geo-political picture and shaped the conflicts since the end of World War II.

WAR WORKThe photographs in War Work date from Side Gallerys engagement with the Save Our Scotswood Works campaign in the late 1970s. W.G. Armstrong founded his Elswick works in 1847 to make the hydraulic cranes he had invented. He developed the breech loading gun in 1854. He built and opened Newcastles Swing Bridge in 1876 so that naval ships could be fitted out with his guns, then opened his own Elswick shipyard in 1884. The exhibition brings together extraordinary images from the test firing of guns to the launch of ships for the navies of the world; from the visiting arms buyers of China and Japan to the communities of Elswick and Scotswood that were shaped around the trade.

HIROSHIMACarefully documenting artefacts held at Hiroshimas Peace Museum, the great Japanese photographer Hiromi Tsuchida has created a series of icons through which the moment of the atomic bombs impact resonates. A couple of melted sake bottles, a watch, a Buddha, a girls school uniform, a wooden clog... the story of each image focusing you in on the individual lives caught in that moment. Hiroshima has been a major subject in the artists work, which is held by many of the worlds major museums. Working with Mark Pearson, the Newcastle-raised owner of Tokyos Zen Foto Gallery, Hiromi Tsuchida recently deposited this set of his Hiroshima photographs in the AmberSide Collection.

EVENTSide Gallery, Saturday 30 August, 2.00pm, Free, All Welcome.

Talk on Japanese photography and the work of Hiromi Tsuchida by Mark Pearson, owner of Zen Foto Gallery, Tokyo.

For many years I have been trying to understand the meaning of what happened to Hiroshima through pictures. Through my camera I have been trying to create a record by capturing both the past and the present of the atomic bomb victims, by looking at the parts of Hiroshima which were left just as they were, kept as war monuments and by viewing the materials and articles of the victims, held in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

The museum has over 7,000 articles from the aftermath of the bomb and great care is taken to maintain them in the same condition as they were at the time of the tragedy, as if the flow of time stopped at that moment. It is not so easy, however, to capture the reality of that tragedy, only by looking at their condition or shape. We must use our imagination, based on our love toward people to make this possible.

The experience of looking at these articles today is inescapably related to the moment they capture, forcing a reflection on the continuity of time. Each item tries to tell us about the tragedy and pass this understanding down through posterity. We can hear the voices of the citizens of Hiroshima saying that, It is our duty as human beings to pass on the meaning of this tragedy in a way which does not divide the people affected by the war into simply victims and assailants.

I think only when this double meaning of time, the time which stopped and the present time, is fully recognised can we understand the meaning of the articles photographed here.

HIROSHIMAHiromi Tsuchida

William Armstrong set up the Newcastle Cranage Co in 1845 to exploit his invention of the hydraulic crane. It became the Elswick Engine Co two years later. Having developed the breech loading gun, in 1854 he formed the Elswick Ordnance Company, manufacturing bridges, naval guns and armaments. Designing and building Newcastles Swing Bridge, which opened in 1876, he enabled ships to come up to Elswick and shipbuilding was a logical next step. Armstrongs merged with CW Mitchell of Low Walker in 1882 and a new shipyard was opened in Elswick in 1884. He had prepared the way, the year before, by removing the mile long island in the Tyne, Kings Meadow, where the Blaydon Races used to be held.

Armstrong Mitchell became the most successful exporter of warships in the world. Over the next 30 years there were 83 launches and the workforce swelled from 100 to 20,000 by the end of the century. There is a suggestion that Armstrong encouraged the numerous late C19th oriental roofs on Tyneside, as a way of conveying Newcastles economic importance to Chinese and Japanese arms buyers.

The company merged with Whitworths in 1897 and moved into car and truck manufacture in the early C20th. The Elswick Ordnance Co became part of Armstrong Whitworth and was a major supplier of both shells and guns during World War I, increasingly employing women to cope with the demand and the pressure on male labour.

After World War I the government encouraged a move into the production of railway locomotives, but demand collapsed in the 1920s and Armstrong Whitworth was forced to merge with its traditional rival Vickers in 1927.

Amber Films & Side Gallery acquired the photographs in this exhibition as part of its engagement with the Save Our Scotswood Works campaign. Vickers Scotswood closed in 1979.

WAR WORKPhotographs from the Armstrong / Mitchell / Whitworth / Vickers Collection