Fundraiser tries to save 'inspirational' gallery

A campaign has started to save a culturally significant gallery from closure.

The Side in Newcastle announced on social media it would shut to the public on Sunday, blaming "critical funding cuts and the cost of living crisis".

Gallery curator Kerry Lowes said she was "overwhelmed" by the response to her appeal for help.

"When you see the outpouring of support - I can't explain how it feels," she said.

The Amber film and photography collective, which came together in 1968 to capture working-class life in the North East, opened the gallery in 1977.

The group said it had been notified in November it would no longer receive Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation funding.

It has been given an annual £120,000 from the fund for the last four years.

Arts Council England has been approached for comment.

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In a post on Twitter the gallery said it had been a "dedicated home to documentary film and photography", highlighting social concerns and "celebrating diverse lives", for 45 years.

Ms Lowes said the venue was "absolutely unique".

She said: "You can come here and see the lives of people in the past, the people in the present from across the world, and communities that we know nothing about.

"And that's what will be lost - that opportunity to come and see that for free."

The gallery has set up an online appeal for £60,000, which raised more than £10,000 in less than 24 hours.

Bryan Dixon, the co-director of AmberSide which runs it, said the reaction had been "phenomenal" and the donations would give them "space" to explore further funding options.

"The emotion in that response, how people feel about the place, has given us real energy to take this forward," he said.

People answering the gallery's plea on Twitter said it was "one of the best bits" of Newcastle.

The city's Discovery Museum called it, external "an intrinsic part of Tyneside's cultural landscape".

Writer and historian Tom Dyckhoff said, external the gallery and the film collective had "transformed lives".

He said: "The photography and film work it has created has been inspirational."

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