BLACK COUNTRY DADA is an exhibition of selected works from renowned photographer Brian Griffin’s autobiography written during the first COVID lockdown. The exhibition will be shown in the Oriel Colwyn gallery as the opening exhibition for The Northern EYE Festival speaker weekend 9-10 October 2021.
Griffin described the images and new book on the FORMAT Festival website as follows:
Black Country Dada
Volume II: 1969 – 1990
I have written my autobiography … yes, I have written it myself!
A hardback book of over 200 pages, with an insightful introduction by W. M. Hunt. It tells truthfully what it was like to survive and make ones way as a photographer in Britain back then. I tell the story through my personal experience of those tough times.
Those were analogue days! Growing up amongst the factories of the Black Country, studying photography in Manchester alongside my friends Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr, and then with trepidation going down to London to make a living as a photographer in the early 1970’s.
In popular recollection, the 1970’s have gone down as the dark ages; Britain’s gloomiest period since the second world war, was set between Harold Wilson’s ‘swinging sixties’ and Margaret Thatcher’s divisive eighties. What was it like to be a young photographer then?
By the end of the 1980’s my photography was known throughout the world. How did I do it? What did I go through? It’s all in this book that tells the story warts and all.
Brian Griffin 2021
Oriel Colwyn (Upstairs at Theatr Colwyn)
Abergele Road, Colwyn Bay LL29 7RU
Tel: 01492 577888
Check the gallery website for latest opening times: