Mónica Riveiro
A few days before visiting a city I look for information about photography exhibitions that might be taking place in a gallery. In this case I was going to the city of Newcastle, England. Doing a Google search I found that there was an exhibition in the city of an unknown to me Chris Killip. As chance would have it, the exhibition took place at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, just 50 metres from my hotel. It is a 1993 building based on the basic structure of an old flour mill.
To my surprise, I discover a photographer committed to a society suffering the devastating effects of deindustrialisation, photographing it for three decades. They are black and white photographs, most of them heartbreaking.
His publications include, among others, "In Flagrante«, «Isle of Man«, «Seacoal«, «Skinningrove» y «Pireli". Each and every one of them are exceptional works of great quality.
However, the work that most impressed me with the emotional power of the images was "Seacoal". Between 1983 and 1984 he lived in a caravan in the seacoal camp, and documented the life, work and struggle for survival on the beach at Lynemouth, where men went with nets, horses and carts and fished for coal from a nearby mining industry that dumped the remains into the sea.
The photograph opposite is a clear example of the emotional force I am talking about. It is of a child returning to the sea some time after his father drowned in the same place. It is an image that says it all and overwhelms.
I recommend a visit to his website where you can find all his works and biography. Also links to interesting interviews.
