‘Fixing Time’ features the work of the renowned artist and photographer Ian Macdonald who has spent his life documenting working-class communities along with the rise and fall of industry in the north. You can see one half of the exhibition at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, and the other half at the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art.

If any photograph exemplifies working-class bloody-mindedness better than Ian Macdonald’s ‘Easter Monday Whitby’ (1970) then I’ve yet to see it. It’s, nominally, a beach scene, but I’ve seen photographs of the beaches taken during the Normandy D-Day landings where the people have looked happier than they do here. It’s obviously cold – everyone is wrapped in a thick coat – and there’s nary a smile to be had anywhere. Still, it’s a bank holiday and you can almost feel a collective obstinate impulse between them that states: “It’s Easter Monday; we’re not at work; and we’re bloody well going to go and sit on some wet sand. Where’s my fags?” There are smiles a-plenty meanwhile, in a 1983 photograph: ‘Canteen staff catching up on the day at their end of their shift, Redcar blast furnace’. The five women here look suspended in their own little world, and I’d give anything to know what little joke or anecdote they’re sharing.‘Fixing Time’ explores 50 years’ worth of Middlesbrough born Macdonald’s work. His stuff has featured in numerous exhibitions across the UK, including The Royal Academy, The Photographer’s Gallery and The Serpentine Gallery, but surely none of those shows has been as comprehensive as this one.Jon Weston, Curator of Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, says: “Ian’s extensive body of work aligns with the tradition of British documentary photography that emerged during the mid 1970s and into the 1980s, a period marked by huge political shifts and social upheaval. Ian took his first photography aged six – using a Box Brownie to take a picture of his parents. Distinctive in his approach, Ian developed a unique style using traditional black-and-white film and print-making techniques. This distinctive aesthetic not only reflects his artistic prowess but also signifies his growing confidence in employing photography as a tool to address the pressing issues observed and lived during that transformative era.”The exhibition at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens spotlights key photographic series such as ‘Heavy Industry’, ‘Smith’s Dock Shipyard’, ‘Redcar Blast Furnace’ and ‘School Portraits’. The exhibition at NGCA, meanwhile, delves into other significant series like ‘The River Tees Estuary’, ‘Greatham Creek’ and ‘People, Towns and Portraits’. RM

Fixing Time: Ian Macdonald, until 3 November at NGCA and 4 January 2025 at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens. northerngalleryforcontemporaryart.org.uk