Life in the Liberated Zone
David Lurie
Photographic
A photographic record of Cape Town’s squatter camps in the late 1980s, capturing daily life in the wake of apartheid’s crumbling restrictions.
Amberside Collection
The AmberSide Collection is a vast body of documentary photography and film dedicated to preserving the working-class experience. Featuring over 20,000 photographs and 100 films, it captures social and industrial life in the North East of England and beyond, with contributions from both local and internationally renowned photographers and filmmakers.
Founded in 1968 by Murray Martin, the Amber Film & Photography Collective set out to create a lasting record of working-class culture. The collection includes works documenting key aspects of everyday life, social struggles, and industrial change. It also features historic projects such as The Building of the Tyne Bridge and the photography of Jimmy Forsyth.
Side’s values are rooted in a concern for working-class, marginalised, or threatened lives and landscapes, both in the UK and abroad. Housed at Side and safeguarded by the AmberSide Trust, the collection remains a vital cultural resource, ensuring that the social history of the North East and wider working-class communities is preserved for future generations.
Like Father (2001)
Amber Films
Film and Video
The second drama in Amber's Coalfield Trilogy explores the lives of a grandfather, father and son as they come to terms with the post-pit closure landscape of East Durham.
Look Me In The Eye
Richard Grassick
Photographic
A 1988 photographic collaboration between Richard Grassick and Steve Burns, exploring everyday life with paraplegia and challenging assumptions about disability, masculinity and independence.
Love of my Choice
Stefan Dolfen
Photographic
A portrait series by Stefan Dolfen, made in County Durham in the early 1990s, in which participants were photographed alongside the person or object they loved most.
Mai (1973)
Amber Films
Film and Video
A film portrait of the eccentric and obsessive collector Mai Finglass - landlady to founder Amber members Murray Martin and Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, when students in London.
Martin Chambi Collection
Martin Chambi
Photographic
A landmark documentary record of Peruvian life, Martin Chambi’s photographs capture Indigenous and colonial society in and around Cuzco between the 1920s and 1970s.
Maybe (1969)
Amber Films
Film and Video
A student documentary about the Shields Ferry on the River Tyne and its engine man. Made by founder members Murray Martin and Graham Denman, it is recognised as the first Amber work.
Meadow Well: An English Estate
Steve Conlan
Photographic
A portrait of resilience and resistance in a North Shields housing estate during a period of social and economic crisis, photographed between 1988 and 1991.
Miners' Weekend School (1984)
Amber Current Affairs Unit
Film and Video
Six short films created from the Miners' Weekend School held in Ashington 1984, during the Miners' Strike.
My Finnish Routes
Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen
Photographic
A photographic reflection on landscape, memory and environmental change, made by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen during her return to Finland in 1992 after decades working in Britain.
Visual Culture
Slide sets of original photography & copied imagery, an extraordinary library originally developed in the 1970s & 80s for higher education: a rich and surprising celebration of C19th & C20th iconography.
Licensing & Usage Requests
Photographic exhibitions, videos, clips, trailers and each month's featured film are free. For personal use Amber's feature dramas, feature documentaries and film shorts are available as pay per view. See details of our Educational Screening Licence or contact us.