Surfing the Don is currently on show in the Seventeen hub on Belmont Street. The project was community initiated and supported by SURF Aberdeen with Alicia Bruce and aimed to get the local communities together in documenting the River Don corridor. "The River Don corridor is a swathe of blue and green at the urban fringe
of north Aberdeen. Running from coast to country it has the River as
its backbone. Over the centuries it has powered industry and urban
expansion and provided a range of terrestrial and aquatic habitats."
The project was facilitated by Scottish photographer extraordinaire Alicia Bruce who's been incredibly busy since her Trump busting exhibition Menie: A North East Community in Conflict. Alicia's work has really pushed the boundaries and shown the power of photography both as a tool for documenting the horrible such a Donald Trumps hate campaign against the Menie residents but also as a tool to unite people as she demonstrated with the Surfing the Don project. Participants of all ages from all backgrounds were welcome with a range of workshops covering the basics right up to the more advanced techniques.
Alicia said of the project "Participants of all ages from all backgrounds were welcome with a range of exhibition planning workshops and we insured the photographers were involved in every stage of the exhibition development. This included a trip to Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow to get a behind the scenes look at where some of Scotland’s top photography exhibitions, including Surfing the Don, were produced. Editing, captioning and photographers rights were also covered during the selection process and a publication was produced. The group were keen to include camera data with the images so that the show could become an educational tool for those starting out in photography."
And the results are brilliant, exposing first hand how beautiful and unique this short stretch of river is. Photos of old machinery like the one below by Darren Wright have revealed things which I never knew existed and the images by the Nadine Ralston whom Alicia introduced me to show a lot of potential, start them young and watch them grow!
Alicia said of the project "Participants of all ages from all backgrounds were welcome with a range of exhibition planning workshops and we insured the photographers were involved in every stage of the exhibition development. This included a trip to Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow to get a behind the scenes look at where some of Scotland’s top photography exhibitions, including Surfing the Don, were produced. Editing, captioning and photographers rights were also covered during the selection process and a publication was produced. The group were keen to include camera data with the images so that the show could become an educational tool for those starting out in photography."
And the results are brilliant, exposing first hand how beautiful and unique this short stretch of river is. Photos of old machinery like the one below by Darren Wright have revealed things which I never knew existed and the images by the Nadine Ralston whom Alicia introduced me to show a lot of potential, start them young and watch them grow!
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| Darren Wright |
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| Vicky Mitchell |
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| All instal photos by David Davidson |
