Blog Post #34

A Day Out To Manchester

During the recent periods of lockdown and Covid scares, it was disappointing but necessary that photography exhibitions were cancelled or postponed. One such exhibition was “A Woman’s Work” showcasing the photography of Tish Murtha and Anne Worthington. The venue for the exhibition was The Refuge which is in the Kimpton Clocktower Hotel in Manchester. I was therefore delighted when I learned that the exhibition was to go ahead this year from March to June in the same location. I had originally planned to attend with my friend and fellow documentary photographer Jos Treen, so was happy when he agreed to get a visit set up this week.

I set off from Derby by train and after a change at Stoke-on-Trent I arrived to plan at Manchester Piccadilly where Jos was waiting on me. A short stroll later and we came across the venue which is a mightily impressive building. We had a quick glance at the exhibition and then got down to the important stuff of having a beer, or two.

As a bit of a bonus for our visit, Jos had arranged for Paul Wright to meet up with us. Paul is the fonder of The British Culture Archive and The People’s Archive. He also organised the “Woman’s Work” exhibition which we had come to see. We hadn’t met face to face before but I knew Paul from email exchanges and he also hosts some of my work on The British Culture Archive. As we all had a love of documentary photography in common there was no shortage of topics to discuss and we chatted for a couple of hours. When we got up to view the exhibition it was great to have Paul take us through his experience in working with Ella (Tish’s daughter and custodian of her archive), and give us the story behind the images. It was a very enjoyable visit and the powerful images that Tish had created will be with us forever thanks to the great work done by people like Paul and Ella.

It wasn’t all Tish Murtha images though. The exhibition also showcased some of the great work done by Anne Worthington in capturing people and living conditions on the streets in the east Manchester in the early 2000’s.

I have been a great admirer of Tish Murtha’s work for many years. Tish sadly died on March 13th 2013, the day before what would have been her 57th birthday, after suffering a brain aneurysm. Thankfully her daughter Ella has ensured that her mother’s work is being kept alive for us all to see. There is a lot of information about Tish including galleries of her work on her official website which I thoroughly recommend to to take a look at. It can be found at this link. Also watch out for a documentary about her life coming out early next year.

I would also recommend that you take some time to look over the great bodies of work that Paul has pulled together in The British Culture Archive and The People’s Archive.

Pete Degnan, Paul Wright and Jos Treen at “A Woman’s Work” Exhibition 19th April 2022

The exhibition runs from 8th March – 30th June, 2022

Having spent so much time chatting and going over the exhibition it left no time for a stroll around Manchester with the camera. I do however plan to go back soon, hopefully with Jos as my guide as I don’t know the city or good hunting grounds for street photography.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog post and thank you for reading it. If you want to comment on this blog post please do so below or you can contact me by using the “Contact Me” facility in the website header.