Dean Chapman
Dean was born in the former steeltown of Corby, Northamptonshire. He graduated from Falmouth School of Art in 1987 with BA hons Degree in Fine Art. In 1989, he visited Asia for the first time, photographing Kashmir, India. The following year he began a documentary project on the Karenni people of Burma. This culminated in the publishing of the book Karenni, the Forgotten War of a Nation Besieged, the winner of the 1998 European Publishers Award for Photography. From this work, a major on-going project documenting Burma and its people, was born. Burma - Darkness in the Golden Land is in The Side Collection. In 1994, Chapman traveled to Japan, and began a long-term documentary of everyday life of Japanese people. Completed in 2002, he travelled to every prefecture in Japan to photograph a diversity of life often unseen by outsiders. Chapman began his association with Side Gallery in 1998 with the exhibition, Karenni. He has since become a core member of the Side Documentary Group. As part of Side's Coalfield Stories project, in Shifting Ground, he has photographed extensively in the former mining communties of the South West Durham Coalfield, primarily along the Gaunless, Wear and Deerness valleys. Chapman is represented by Panos Pictures, London, and his photographs have been widely published in Europe and Asia. Exhibitions of his work have been staged in Newcastle upon Tyne, London, Milan, Rome, Kyoto and Tokyo. In 2002, he completed London, City of Strangers, recording life on the streets of the capital.
Shifting Ground
from: Photography
Young people’s lives in South West Durham, documented as part of Side’s Coalfield Stories programme of production, 1999/2000. The work is linked to the photographer's Field's Chip Shop and Aftermath.
Burma: Darkness in the Golden Land
from: Photography
Documentation of life in Burma under the junta that seized power in 1988. The photographs were taken between 1990 and 2001, part of the same engagement that led to Dean Chapman's book and exhibition, Karenni.
Aftermath: Foot and Mouth in Tow Law
from: Photography
A narrative from Dean Chapman's 'Shifting Ground' work, documenting South West Durham for Amber's 'Coalfield Stories', which looks at the aftermath of the 2001 foot & mouth epidemic and the impact of the Inkerman Burial Site on Tow Law.
Field's Chip Shop
from: Photography
In Esh Winning, the last coalfired chip shop in County Durham, documented as part of Shifting Ground, the photographer’s Coalfield Stories survey of South and South West Durham, 2003.