Byker and Beyond with Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen Lunchtime Talk

Byker and Beyond with Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen

Wed 13 Nov 2024 | 13:00-14:00
Level 1 Cinema
Free. booking essential 

Photographer Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen moved to Newcastle in 1969, having co-founded Amber Film & Photography Collective. Her work documents working people’s lives and the changing conditions in the North East over a remarkable period, with Byker, perhaps her best-known project, recognised as seminal by UNESCO. Originally an outsider like Franki Raffles, yet similarly embedded in a place and dealing with many of the same issues, for this talk, Konttinen reflects on her work and its impact — illustrated throughout by her photography.

Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, born in Finland, moved to London to study film in the late 1960s at the Polytechnic in Regent Street before moving to Newcastle. After Byker, her project Step by Step became a heavy influence in Lee Hall's development and writing for his play Dancer, which later became the cult coming-of-age film Billy Elliot.

More recently, three years of photographing the beach between Seaham and Hartlepool resulted in the series Coal Coast. Between 2003 and 2009, Konttinen returned to Byker and photographed its new residents in colour in Byker Revisited.

Her work is held in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Tate and the UK Memory of the World Register.

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