"All Quiet on the North Western Front". An exhibition of photographs by Gloria Chalmers.

Background Information

Deposit comprises a set of exhibition prints from the exhibition "All Quiet on the North Western Front", by Gloria Chalmers. The exhibition resulted from work carried out while Gloria was Photographer in Residence at Leigh College. The residency was funded by Leigh College and North West Arts.

Gloria Chalmers was born in Glasgow in 1948.

Before studying photography at the Polytechnic of Central London from 1980-83, she worked in arts administration and welfare rights.

During her second year at college, she received a Thames Television research and travel award to photograph the settings of George Orwell's novels, which took her to Paris, London, Catalonia in Spain and Wigan, where she looked at some of the ideas contained in his books in relation to the 1980s.

The resulting photographic work has been exhibited in New York and Chicago. She later returned to Wigan and photographed some young women who live in Platt Bridge. Some of her photographs were also used in the book "Wigan Pier Revisited" by Beatrix Campbell (1984).

On graduating from college with a first class honours degree, she worked as exhibitions organiser at the Cockpit Gallery in London. The Cockpit produces and tours photographic exhibitions on contemporary culture to schools and colleges throughout the country. Gloria left this job to take up the residency at Leigh College.

The exhibition was the property of Leigh College and was deposited by Mr. John Gardner, principal of Leigh College. The exhibition comprises 48 black and white prints.