Skip to main content
Black and white and Redcar
MIKE QUILLE salutes an extensive body of photographic work that documents, with subtlety and compassion, working-class lives in north-east England
Redcar Blast Furnace, 2.00am Midsummer night, 1986; Picnic on Bran Sand, South Gare, Teesmouth 1982

Ian Macdonald – Fixing Time
Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland

 

FIXING TIME is the title of a comprehensive exhibition of 50 years’ work by Ian Macdonald, the north-east England photographer and artist. It takes place across two venues, the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art and Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens.

Macdonald’s extensive body of work is dedicated to documenting working-class life, and the rise and fall of heavy industry in the north-east in the last decades of the 20th century. This has been, of course, a period marked by huge political shifts and social upheaval. There are a wide range of themes, including People, Towns and Portraits; Greatham Creek, Teeside; Smith’s Dock Shipyard; Redcar Blast Furnace; and School Portraits.

Donate to the Fighting Fund
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
CONFRONTING HOMOPHOBIA: (L) FCB Cadell, The Boxer, c.1924; (
Exhibition review / 21 March 2025
21 March 2025
While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
BLOOD ON THE TRACKS: Xilun Sun as the mysterious interloper
Film of the Week: / 20 March 2025
20 March 2025
ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China
Short Story / 7 February 2025
7 February 2025
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
Frantz Fanon at a press conference during a writers' confere
BenchMarx / 28 January 2025
28 January 2025
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
Similar stories
CLAIMING HER PLACE: (L) Maud Sulter, Self-portrait, 2001-2,
Exhibition Review / 10 December 2024
10 December 2024
JOE JACKSON explores how growing up black amid ‘the quiet racism of Scotland’ shaped the art and politics of Maud Sulter
Consuelo Kanaga. Young Girl in Profile, 1948.
Books / 3 October 2024
3 October 2024
JOHN GREEN marvels at the rediscovery of a radical US photographer who took the black civil rights movement to her heart
(Left) Untitled, (Right) Untitled
Exhibition review / 26 August 2024
26 August 2024
MICHAL BONCZA sees an exhibition of photography that offers intriguing glimpses of Britain
(L) A resident of Burnthouse Lane estate; (R) Derek, a homel
Books / 6 August 2024
6 August 2024
JOHN GREEN appreciates two photobooks that study the single room of a homeless hostel resident, and a council estate in Exeter