On 9th April 2023, Side Gallery closed to the public due to critical funding cuts and the ‘cost of living crisis’.
We’re thrilled to announce £236,615 support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for our project Transforming Amber: Building a Resilient Future. This support will secure our building for the next year.
But this grant isn’t just about the gallery, it’s much bigger.
Our main task over the next year is to develop a new business model and new ways to generate income so that we can become financially sustainable.
Over 12 months, new partnerships with working photographers and the North East arts community will be explored to open the collection to a wider audience. We aim to host exhibitions and events, as well as create a publicly accessible catalogue featuring unique films and photographs.
It is hoped that this work will lead the organisation on a path to reopen the Side Gallery in the future.
Join our Mailing List for further updates!
Amber came together as a film & photography collective in 1968 focussing on documenting working class and marginalised lives and landscapes in North East England. In 1977 we opened Side Gallery, which is committed to celebrating the best in the wider tradition of humanist documentary photography.
Side Gallery is dedicated to showing the best in documentary photography: rich, powerful and challenging work engaged with people’s lives and landscapes, telling stories that often get marginalised, whether they are from the North East of England or anywhere else in the world.
We’re not far from the Tyne Bridge on Newcastle’s Quayside.
As of 9th April 2023, Side Gallery is closed to the public due to critical funding cuts and the ‘cost of living crisis’.
Landscapes & lives of NE England, classic & contemporary documentary: a unique film & photographic collection growing from the work we’ve continued to produce, commission & collect since 1968.
Photographic exhibitions, videos, clips, trailers and each month’s Featured Film are free. For personal use Amber’s feature dramas, feature documentaries and film shorts are available as pay per view.
Classic and contemporary international film seasons, often linked to exhibitions at Side Gallery or to the wider work of AmberSide.
We have closed our cinema for re-development but we can still share films together digitally with our Doc North East programme.
Delivering distinctive projects with schools, colleges and the community – we use the AmberSide Collection and other resources as inspiration to develop creative, participative projects teaching documentary skills in photography and filmmaking to engage with local history and cultural heritage.
The best, and in many cases the only, place for DVD & Video from 40 years of Amber Filmmaking. Photography books linked to Amber’s production and Side Gallery’s exhibitions. Side Gallery’s classic photography Posters & Postcards. Plus high quality digital Prints and special editions.
