Exhibition by George Georgiou at The Side Gallery, Newcastle

On Saturday 3 July 2010 I went to a photographic exhibition at The Side Gallery, Newcastle. When I have stumbled upon photographic exhibitions in the past (such as at The Baltic and Queen's Hall, Hexham) I have usually been unimpressed, failing to be inspired by photos of e.g women showing off their private parts (I think that was at the Baltic some years ago, can't remember who the photographer was). So my expectations were fairly low.

However this was not the case at The Side, where I found a gem of an exhibition by George Georgiou entitled "Fault Lines". It was documentary photography, and explored Turkey. The photographer himself lived in Turkey for almost 5 years, and was therefore well immersed in the country to document it. Here's some words by George Georgiou to describe the raison d'etre behind the series.

"Turkey is poised geographically and symbolically between Europe & Asia, the tensions at the heart of the country becoming increasingly severe. There is a fierce struggle between modernity and tradition, secularism & Islamism, democracy & repression - often in unlikely and contradictory combinations.

"Living in Turkey, I was surprised at how quickly change was taking place: landscapes, towns & cities reshaped, and extensive road network under construction, town centres "beautified", and large apartment blocks springing up around every town and city - they are becoming carbon copies of each other".

"The modernization is designed to handle the mass migration from village to city that is transforming Turkey, Istanbul, a city of a million people in 1960, is now one of the world's largest urban sprawls with an estimated population of over 15 million. Meanwhile there is a rapid disintegration of community in Turkish villages and towns, with the new low-cost housing projects based on models that have generally failed in Europe".

The exhibition is also online, and he has a fabulous website which you can find here:

http://www.georgegeorgiou.net/projects.php?groupid=1

Aside from the fascination at looking at the development of a country far removed from my own, here was my thoughts about this particular exhibition.

1. All the images had an extremely large depth of field, and were eye wateringly sharp throughout. Technically 100% accurate. This was much more apparent in the exhibition than online, which highlights the usefulness of actually going to a gallery.
   
2. They had eye catching strong saturated colours, often set against a neutral dull backdrop such as flat grey skies, dull bare earth wasteground, grey concrete or barren mountains.
3. There was a strong sense of scale.
4. The subject matter was extremely interesting and insightful.
5. There were details that caught your eye, such as the mobile phone in the man's hand in the deserted cafe that looks from a bygone era.

In summary, it captured strong content sympathetically, in an aesthetically pleasing and technically competent way.

My favourites from the exhibition were:

• "Turks 2" - the low key panorama images which had spotlighting on people's faces. They were all candid & natural poses, and I particularly liked the image with the bright pink headscarf. It reminds me of a station platform, and I would be interested to know how he produced this.
• The boy playing football and the little boy on the trike outside the yellow housing complex with all the satellite dishes. It's another one of those shots where the triangle formed by the boy's legs as he kicks the ball gives it extra impact.
• The Tailors Shop, Dogubeyazit - everything is green, even his suit, and I love the proud expression on the tailor's face.
  
• Cafe, Kilis - I like the desertion of the cafe, the colours, the plant growing up the wall and then the mobile phone in the man's hand which is so at odds with his surroundings.
• The blue cart on the derserted curved road up to the modern housing blocks, with their bright colours.
• The shot of the bus window
• The image at the end of the exhibition with all the people stood in a large fenced off yard. The strong pattern and brightly coloured clothes again contrasting strongly with the dull background and I am drawn to wonder what they are all doing standing there like that.

The exhibition also highlighted something about Britain which I hadn't really considered before. The images captured the barren bare earth landscape of Turkey. In Britain, every inch of the land is landscaped, manicured, or naturally flourishes. Or that is how it seems. From the fields, hedgerows, or rugged natural beauty of the Lake District, Scottish countryside etc. everything uncultivated is green & beautiful. I believe much of that "uncultivated" land is managed to a degree. Where land is occupied, it is tended & manicured. Although there are exceptions to this (think industrial wastegrounds or run down estates), they are exceptions not the norm. It is something I have taken forgranted. I guess it's a beneficial side effect of a wet climate, and historical investment in infrastructure, where people are paid by the council to cut the grass, manicure the common ground etc. I wonder if it will still be like this in 50 years time when public services are cut to strip out non essentials (like council gardeners & defra subsidies for landowners) and if global warming starts to toast the British climate. Just a thought.

A final point - the gallery itself was in a pretty photogenic location - here's a couple of shots I took whilst visiting.