One of the best parts of my day job is being able to get involved in various art projects, exhibitions and events. With the WEYA season coming to a close over the last two weeks I’ve been working with the staff at New Walk Museum in Leicester on the August Sander – Artists Rooms Exhibition and accompanying educational project, and on Saturday evening, the preview of the Annual Nottingham Castle Open.
The Sander show is really engaging, social photography from the mid war period in Weimar Germany. All walks of society painstakingly photographed, right at the beginning of the process. Many of the images on display have been handprinted by Sanders grandson Gerd, who was present at the preview. The exhibition is very much worth a view if you are in the area. New Walk is a great public museum with a big focus on educational engagement at all levels and is a credit to the staff and the City Council.
The Castle Museum, Nottingham is another great venue and I hope that the consultation currently underway, leads down the right path. Nottingham has a huge historical past and whether it’s Robin Hood or Charles the First, a lot could be done to develop an awareness of our cultural heritage.
The Open Exhibition is always enjoyable and I have been nominating prize winners of the (ssshhhh day job) prize for the last 5 or 6 years. This year I chose Lucy Stevens, a print maker from Leicester and Peter Jackson, a photographer from Nottingham. I’m an ex printmaker so have always had an affection for printmaking & Peter’s photograph of the Forest Recreation Ground reminded me of living in the area, being stuck in traffic there and taking the children for walks there. Its was a great mix of social & landscape photography and I hope he benefits from the prize.
It was a very pretty evening light and weather wise so heres a little gallery of images.
In the next few weeks I’m helping out at Derby Museum and with more events around the Sander exhibition. All very enjoyable and hopefully worthwhile for all.
adrian4 
#Sandergram @LeicesterMuseum
As part of my ‘day job’ I have been able to offer support to Leicester Museum & Leicester College for the period of the August Sander exhibition and the associated educational/social engagement project #sandergram.
Sander was a forerunner in the social photography idiom, creating iconic images of the social structure in the mid war period of the twentieth century. The current exhibition of photographs at the New Walk Museum in Leicester is required viewing for students of photography, street photography and social journalism. Many of the pictures on show have been reprinted from glass plate negatives by Sanders grandson and have a rare and striking authenticity.
The #sandergram project provides an engagement channel for photographers to contribute their own images to a Flickr stream which will form part an educational program organised through Leicester College. Selected images will be exhibited in March 2013 at the Leicester Peoples Photographic Gallery.
Sanders main body of work used a very pure form of image with the subjects being ‘eye to lens’, full length portraits in their normal environment. The exhibition illustrates every level of German society with pictures of great artistic merit and conformational clarity.
I submitted the image above through Flickr and I would encourage any photographers who see this to contribute. The project will be more successful if they receive more submissions from local, national & international photographers.
If you have a Flickr account search #sandergram and add to their feed. Alternatively you can submit by Twitter. Send your picture to @leicestermuseum and include the hastgag #sandergram. Include the name of your picture in the message. You can visit their website here at www.sandergram.org and view the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/leicestermuseums
Please join in and send your submissions so that they can create a create a representative window on the people of the world. Look at Sanders images first and remember its the subject that is key.
In the mean time, here are some more of my recent portraits including DBoy5.11 & BabyJ2.07. I particularly like the the last one.
For more about August Sander and to view an archive of works visit the Art Sy page here
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Tagged as August Sander, Flickr, Leicester, New Walk Museum, Photography, Sander, Street photography, Twitter