By PHYLLIS STEPHENRON O’DONNELL - Edinburgh: A Lost World
is a one floor exhibition at the City Art Centre
featuring black & white and colour photographs
of unseen and forgotten Edinburgh interiors by
contemporary Scottish artist Ron O’Donnell.
Known today for his constructed
photography and large-scale installations,
O’Donnell began his artistic career as a
photographer.
He was born in Stirling in 1952 and studied
photography at Napier Polytechnic in
Edinburgh. He later went on to work as a
trainee photographer at Stirling University,
taught in prison education and eventually
returned to Edinburgh Napier University as a
lecturer in photography.
O’Donnell has always had a curious and
insatiable desire to document the city. Looking
for unusual interiors, he would cycle around
with his camera – a tool he used to access
hidden spots that many people never saw.He was drawn to old fashioned, cluttered,
and run-down interiors. On display for the first
time are around 40 photographs from
O’Donnell’s impressive archive of these
little-known and lost places in Edinburgh.
The images depict prison cells, public toilets
and laundrettes, as well as local shops such as
greengrocers and fishmongers. They were taken
during the 1970s, 1980s and three decades
later. Some of the early works date from
when O’Donnell was a student and many
of these places are no longer in existence.
Curator Maeve Toal said: “The
artworks on display reveal the social
changes that have taken place in
Edinburgh, some illustrate how
our behaviour as consumers
has shifted dramatically
over the years from local
communities to global
online markets. The
exhibition highlights
how many of theseonce busy and flourishing shops have now
disappeared from the city’s landscape.”
O’Donnell said: “I started taking some of
these photographs of interiors as a student.
Shooting them, became an absolute
compulsion, a desire to record on film a
vanishing city. In retrospect, I was privileged to
have been allowed to document these places,
given access to behind-the-scenes
areas, through the generosity of the
various owners. I hope that the
images I have captured will
become a fascinating document
of this great city.”The exhibition is part of a
photographic season at the
City Art Centre. The show
runs until 5 March 2023.
It is free to enter and is
accompanied by an in
person and digital events
programme.18 WHAT’S ON
CULTURE • LITERATURE • EVENTS • MUSIC • MUSEUMS...
Tom Duffin:
An Edinburgh
photographer’s
calendar year
Revealing a Lost World
Ron O’Donnell’s journey through Edinburgh’s unseen and forgotten interiors
Old Edinburgh
Club - December
through history
- 3RD – In 1894, Edinburgh-born author
Robert Louis Stevenson died in Samoa,
at the age of 44. - 7TH – In 2002, in the evening, a fire
started above the Belle Angele nightclub
off the Cowgate; it swept up through the
eight-storey structure to other buildings
on Cowgate and above it on South Bridge;
it took more than a day for the fire, to be
brought under control, and several days
for it to be completely extinguished;
thankfully no lives were lost. - 8TH – In 1669, the Council granted a
warrant to Robert Clerk to organise the
Pricing Book Lottery. - 10TH – In 1768, the first volume of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica edited by
William Smellie went on sale in Edinburgh. - 16TH – In 1601, Andro Turnbull
was beheaded at the Mercat Cross
for the murder of Thomas Ker the
previous month. - 18TH – In 1780, the Society of Antiquaries
of Scotland was founded. - 19TH – In 1887, Rumford Medal-winning
Leith-born scientist Balfour Stewart died
during a journey from Scotland to his
country estates in Ireland. And in 1904,
The Scotsman newspaper moved to new
offices on North Bridge. - 20TH – In 1862, surgeon and anatomist
Robert Knox died; Knox became notorious
as one of the men to whom the murderers
Burke and Hare delivered corpses for
dissection. - 21ST – In 1965, Stuart Mitchell, Scottish
pianist and composer, best known for his
Seven Wonders Suite, was born in
Edinburgh. And in 1989, the City Bypass
was completed. - 24TH – In 1650, Edinburgh castle
surrendered to Oliver Cromwell. - 27TH – In 1794, Major Alexander Gordon
Laing, the first European to reach
Timbuktu via the north/south route, was
born in Edinburgh.
Compiled by Jerry Ozaniec, Membership
Secretary of the Old Edinburgh Club
[email protected]‘Boiler, Caledonian Brewery,
Slateford Road’, 1983Ron
O’DonnellI HAVE PRINTED a calendar
for the last four years.
The first year I dived deep
into my archive to choose the
images for each month, but
since then I’ve recruited my
Facebook followers to choose
for me.
Given 10 or so images taken
in each month they vote with
their “Likes” and the most
popular image takes its placein the calendar. It can get a
bit heated.
An image should tell its own
story of course, but often there’s
a back story that helps the
viewer connect with a scene,
with the moment in time.
I use my social media profiles
to tell some of that story and
you can also read about the
photos I take on my website.
A brief whirl through themonths takes us from Calton
Hill to The Meadows with some
colourful sunrises and sunsets
in between. Buy a 2023
calendar online from £12 up.
For corporate customers it is
possible to brand the calendar
and also to make different
choices when it comes to the
images used.
http://www.tomduffin.com/
2023-calendarRon O’Donnell