Capturing the spirit of childhood
- Text by Cian Traynor, Atina Dimitrova
- Photography by Lead image: Dean Chapman, from 2001's Shifting Ground
Some things never change about growing up: the innocence and imagination, the hormone-induced rebellion, the struggle for an identity of your own.
But beyond that, there are always cultural experiences unique to a specific time and place.
Seaham Bus Station (2005) from All Dressed Up by Karen Robinson
A new exhibition at Side Gallery in Newcastle, the UK’s only venue dedicated to documentary photography, pieces together four decades’ worth of work exploring those complexities.
They include Wendy Ewald’s seminal Portraits and Dreams, a project developed with children she taught in an Appalachian coalfield community during the 1970s, as well as Dean Chapman’s Shifting Ground (2001), which documents young people’s lives in Britain’s post-industrial landscape.
A maths class at Kuramo Junior College in Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria. Photo by Julian Germain.
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