The great photographer Martine Franck died in August. This was the initial prompt for us to look again at the Northern Survey, which Side Gallery commissioned her to develop in 1978.

The invitation - to both Franck and her husband Henri Cartier Bresson - was an early action of gallery director Chris Killip, the photographer who had taken on the role of gallery director for a year that January. The exhibition brings together her work with the small selection of pictures he took while they were here and the correspondence between them and Side.

As an interesting counterpoint to the Martine Franck survey, in the gallery downstairs we're showing Daniel Meadows' Free Photographic Omnibus Northern Arts Exhibition. In 1973 and 74, Meadows toured the UK in a double decker, producing a documentary survey of the country. Exhibitions were given to each of the participating/funding regional arts associations. Northern Arts gave theirs to the newly opened Side Gallery in 1977 and it seems to be the only one to have survived!